


Down We Go and the Lights Are Low

by myliel



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Hackers, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Banter, Conspiracy, Everyone Bonds, Everyone Does the Cyber, Evil Corporations, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Plot, Rated For Violence, Repressed Memories, Revolution, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, broganes, but fear not this is still a klance fic, glacial pace yall be warned, im going to try and give all the characters equal screentime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-11-14 17:11:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11212524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myliel/pseuds/myliel
Summary: The city was the perfect place to lose yourself in - the wires and cables and cords tightened themselves around your throat and suffocated you until all you could breathe was smog-soaked air. Neon signs burned into your retinas - you saw the city - its lights and lies - even after you closed your eyes.Incidentally, it was also the perfect place to fall in love.(AKA the cyberpunk AU nobody asked for. Robots abound.)





	1. Causing Static

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone. this is my first ever major work of fiction and also my first fanfiction and i'm so excited to share this with the world.
> 
> for people unfamiliar with cyberpunk, wikipedia defines it as: a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting that tends to focus on society as "high tech low life" featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as information technology and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
> 
> oh and there's robots too.
> 
> SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO MY AMAZING FRIEND [WILL](http://necrofarts.tumblr.com/) for meticulously proofreading and editing and providing _top notch_ moral support
> 
> title comes from a misheard lyric of the song [forgiveness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRFmmwbNqRg%22) by made in heights - a song whose atmosphere essentially inspired this entire fic.
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoy and would love to hear any and all comments/criticisms whatsoever

PART ONE: LAUNCH  
CHAPTER ONE: CAUSING STATIC

Sometimes just looking at the city - one could feel the life and force and pain of the galaxy that it housed. The skyscrapers - dotted with lights like Christmas trees - scratched the belly of the sky and radiated with the warmth of the Earth and industry. People didn’t live in the city - it took no temporary residents - it grabbed hold of their life and soul until they saw themselves in the putrid puddles, stained with light, and in the streets and lamps and neon nametags. 

It was always like this, as far back as anyone could remember. 

The city couldn’t exist without its residents; and overtime, its residents couldn’t exist without the city. 

It stretched from lost-Los Angeles north to once-San Francisco, enveloping the suburbs and deserts and farmland that stood in its oozing path. The Pacific Ocean lapped at the feet of grand skyscrapers - sea air collided with neon haze and garbage and urine. 

The city stunk. It assaulted the senses from all angles- along with putrid scent and omnipresent neon, the city never shut up. There was always traffic, barking, muffled music from an underground dive - whose purpose was to defy any and all laws of morality - escaping through the cracks of the concrete sidewalks. If you were rich enough, you could afford to fall asleep listening to the sound of ocean waves rather than the wailing of drug-induced ecstasy. 

The walls were thin in this city. 

Pidge knew this first hand. The precious barrier that separated her capsule-bunk from the ones adjacent might as well have been made of paper. 

If she had a dollar every time a moan seeped through the walls, she would be rich enough to afford a private penthouse - a good distance from this hellhole - free of unwanted moans and nighttime grunts. 

Alas, this was not the case. Pidge was accompanied by the sounds of her next door neighbour relieving stress (she often hummed along to the tune of classical music. (Tonight was “ _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_ : A Modern Reinterpretation”) as her eyes scanned the dim blue light of her laptop. Ugly bulges and alien wires corrupted the computer’s silhouette and the poor laptop wheezed as it struggled to maintain the thousands of programs it ran. 

The screen flashed bright and sweat beaded at Pidge’s palms as she saw the blinking blip amidst the numbers and pages and infinite tabs - like a sign from a god or the universe itself. 

The buzz from her watch confirmed the sign’s presence and she blinked like she was waking up from a dream. 

Bingo, show time, whatever you want to call it - _it_ was happening. She exited her capsule slowly, heart hammering in her throat. _Just_ as the moaning subsided. Timing. 

Pidge huffed with fake irritation - she couldn’t really be annoyed, not when the signs all pointed to tonight and change and hope and so she tiptoed out of the thick-aired dorm with an unsteady heart and sweaty palms.

. . .

Lance hated the word “megapolis”. Aside from it being a disgustingly ugly word - what with its consonants and guttural sounds - he felt the word took away from the _life_ of the city. Its simple charms, its blood and its pulse.

The word did nothing to illustrate the wires so dense as to blot the sun, it didn’t say anything about his favorite noodle shop dimly lit by faded pink neon and houseplants, it didn’t mention the stray cats on the corner of the street with the extra-noisy leaky pipe that he liked to feed on his way to said noodle shop. 

He lived and breathed the city - no word could ever describe the forest of glass, steel, fluorescent gas, and wires that stretched into the horizon farther than they eye could see. 

And it was because he loved this city so much that on May 27, 2049 at 10:33 PM (a Thursday), he decided to break curfew. 

The Garrison was the most prestigious police academy in the entire city, although perhaps it being the _only_ police academy in the entire city had something to do with. Breaking curfew at the Garrison - a school that prided itself on utter discipline, pure obedience - was a crime punishable by death (read: school-wide bathroom duty. The custodians loved when students would break curfew). 

Restless and alone, he slid out of his capsule-bunk into the hot, cloudy hallway.

Cadets were organized alphabetically by last name, like books in a library or files on a desktop. Lance had to step softly, silently, until he reached Hunk’s capsule at the far beginning of the alphabet. 

The cold blue glow of the backlit hallway reminded him of an airplane - the low rumble of the building oftentimes acted as a nighttime lullaby to Lance, mind unruly and body restless. 

He approached the capsule, and the light from within told him that his friend was already awake.  
Hunk had a supernatural talent for detecting mischief - and took it upon himself to ensure that his idiot friend remained unscathed. Lance raised a hand to tap Hunk’s foot - but before he could make contact, Hunk jerked up (as far up as the capsule could allow, at least), cellphone in hand and watch glowing. 

His thick, dark hair stood up from every angle and the illumination from his smart phone revealed a face sleepless and haggard. 

“Man, did you get any sleep at all? Did you know I was coming, or something?” Lance whispered with a nervous chuckle. Hunk worried - a _lot_ , actually - but Lance had never seen him _this_ worried. 

“Well, yeah, I always know when you’re coming.” Hunk had a steady, matter-of-fact way of speaking that reminded Lance of his father, or his eldest brother. It was always comforting. “But that’s not the point,” Hunk said, tired eyes and steadfast voice tense and uneasy, “I’ll tell you later.” 

Hunk crawled out of the capsule, his movements slow and wary. He grabbed his backpack on the way out, and Lance saw he was already dressed in his everyday clothes. Hunk knew something was going to happen.

The hairs on Lance’s arms stood up and he and Hunk quietly padded away from the hallway of capsules. 

The two men - desperate not to get caught lest they suffer capital punishment - tip-toed down the carpeted halls away from the dorms, towards the central staircase that ran up and down the building like a spinal column. 

Lance assumed they were going up to the roof, a little-known hideout of his where he liked to sit and watch the city and pretend it was all his. 

“You okay, man? You’re not normally like this,” Lance paused, “Okay. You’re sometimes like this. Often, actually-” Hunk exhaled in frustration and held his hand up, eyes closed, effectively silencing Lance. A sight to behold. 

“So. I knew you were gonna come wake me up, obviously, because there’s no way _on Earth_ you could possibly sleep when it’s-” Hunk glanced at his watch, “91º outside. And when you’re bored, you come to me, _God knows why_. So I stayed up. But I noticed something weird.” Hunk flashed the smooth screen of his watch in Lance’s direction - the sudden flash was jarring to his unadjusted eyes and he blinked in pain.  
Hunk had modded the watch until it was unrecognizable from the standard Bayard Inc. models every cadet was given and now blocky, mismatching nodes and thin, colorful wires decorated it like a chandelier and distorted the smooth and simple rectangular surface that Lance wore on his own wrist. 

Hunk’s watch - if it could even be called that - looked fine to Lance, but his friend chewed on his bottom lip in a way Lance had only seen once before (a story for another time).

“The display works fine, and I can access basic utilities,” Hunk paused and chewed his lip again. 

“But?” Lance said - intrigue and excitement itching underneath his skin. 

“But whenever I try and open communications,” he tapped a chat-bubble icon, “I get this message.” The screen fizzed with silent static and the word “ **S T O L E N** ” \- repeated over and over and _over_ \- crackled in and out of existence. The word jumped out at Lance - unwarranted and unexpected. 

“What the hell, man?”

“I have _no idea_ what it means,” Hunk said, the confusion and frustration in his voice as clear as bells. He punched some buttons on his watch with more force than necessary until the screen faded to black and the glowing “BAYARD INC.” logo shone clear. “But what’s weirder is that it gives me… a signal. Like whatever was ‘stolen’ is asking to be found,” Hunk ran a hand through his hair and in that moment, Lance swore he was looking at a haggard middle-aged man instead of the young friend he knew. 

“Well, I mean. If it’s _asking_ for it, then…” Lance shrugged wryly and he could feel the adrenaline beneath his fingernails. 

“No. No, no, no. No! Dude, are you insane? We have absolutely no idea what any of this means - we could get arrested, or killed, or worse.”

“Then why the hell did you _tell_ me?”

“So, maybe, if I was found… mysteriously dead in my capsule the next morning, you would have had at least some idea of how I died?”

“I - what? _That makes no sense_ -”

An ominous blue glow stopped Lance in his tracks. His pulse spiked and Hunk whispered, 

“We’re not alone.”

. . .

Pidge worried that the glint of her glasses would give her away. She happened to value absolute security over personal safety, so she came to the decision to remove the delicate frames from her face and place them in one of her many pockets.

Pidge was rendered effectively blind, especially in the low-lit hallway, and what looked like static and raindrops clouded her vision. She clung tightly to her hardshell messenger bag - heavy with her laptop - and listened to the slow _blip, blip, blip_ in her earbud. 

She had to contain the anticipation seeping from her being and maintain a silent, steadfast pace. She couldn’t believe she was this close. Pidge had waited eleven months to the day from this moment - eleven months in silence, without a sign, without hope. Who knew one word could bring her to such elation and excitement. Actually, _she_ knew - Pidge would imagine, accompanied by pinpricks of tears behind her eyelids, what it would be like finally getting that sign, finding him again. 

He was stolen from her and she would do anything to get him back. 

Heart racing, adrenaline slowly taking control of her body, she ran head-first into the warm, solid mass in front of her. 

“ _What the shit_ -!” Lance exclaimed in his loudest whisper as Hunk grunted from impact.  
Illuminated by the dim blue light, the figure that stood before them was slim, short, and practically radiated energy. Hunk doubled over, holding his stomach - more surprised than anything. 

“Get out of my way, you… lummox! I - wait. Hunk?” The figure tried to push Hunk out of her way (unstoppable force meets immovable object), stopping still as recognition lit up her features. 

“Pidge?” Hunk blinked. Pidge blinked. 

“You two know each other?” Lance said, confusion clear in his voice as he pointed between the pair. 

“Yeah, we chat sometimes about mods and computers and stuff. But that’s not important! Pidge, what are you _doing_ out here?”

“I suppose I could ask you the same thing,” Pidge said, readjusting her bulging messenger bag. Hunk and Lance shared glances, unsure of whether or not to let someone else in on their stolen secret. Hunk sighed.

“We shouldn’t hang around here too long. I’ll tell you in the stairwell,” Hunk relented. Pidge nodded, and the trio began their way to the stairs and the air of anticipation surrounding them was as suffocating as mustard gas.

. . .

“So, I’ll spare you the details. I was up late and all of a sudden my watch started… malfunctioning. I kept getting the weirdest freaking message over and over - here, I’ll show you.” Hunk brandished his clunky, bulging watch at Pidge, hand resting on her chin. “I think I got the message and Lance didn’t because my watch is a lot… better than his. No offense,” he added as Lance feigned indignation. “But the message is just one word, “STOLEN”, repeating. It freezes up my display and I have to reboot. But that’s not even the weirdest part. I’m getting this weird signal, a navpoint, that’s like... _directing_ me to whatever this “STOLEN” thing is,” Hunk said, glancing at Pidge.

Pidge rolled her long sleeve up to her elbow, revealing an equally deformed and altered watch. 

“Oh, fantastic. There’s two of them,” Lance muttered under his breath. 

Pidge hadn’t bothered to reboot hers, and “STOLENSTOLENSTOLEN” crackled on her display, static glitches lighting up the stairwell like a lightning storm. 

“Uhh, okay. That’s weird. And probably really, _really_ unsafe. So now I know it’s not just me, and I’m likely not going to be killed by some secret hitman with a personal vendetta against me, so I’m going to forget everything about this and go back to bed. Sound good?” 

Pidge scoffed, “Please. I’ve waited months for this. I’m following that signal if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“So you knew about this?” Hunk asked, surprised.

Pidge nodded.

“What? How? What does it mean?”

Pidge smirked, “If you really want to know, you’ll come with me.” She headed down the steps, towards the emergency exit, the dark stairwell illuminated by her watch.

Lance stood still, the circuits in his brain whirring. He felt frozen in time, like he needed a manual reboot. He was always one for light mischief, temporary fun. He messed around once or twice, got his kicks, and went home. Everything remained normal. He stayed normal. But this… this felt different. This felt big. This felt like an introduction to a world Lance saw but never touched, acknowledged but never participated, never wanted to participate. He shouldn’t - he had no idea what any of this could ever mean - he didn’t even know this girl. What is “stolen” - what _could_ be stolen? What if they actually find it, whatever it even is? What if someone wants it back? What if…? 

Something clicked.

“I’m coming,” Lance whisper-hollered towards Pidge below him. 

Hunk looked at Lance, hands raised in protest, brows drawn in shock. “Lance, what are you thinking? Listen to me: we have no idea what could happen. We could get in major trouble, man; not just with the Garrison - with the police. _Galtech_ , even. Slow down and think about what’s really at stake here,” Hunk pleaded, firmly rooted in his place. Dependable, sturdy. Lance shook his head.  
“I know what I want. I don’t care what’s at stake,” Lance replied, and he climbed down the steps to the emergency exit highlighted by tiny red lights where Pidge stood waiting for him. 

Hunk’s mouth hung open in disbelief. 

This was actually happening. 

His only friend was blind to reason and caution, abandoning him for some goose-chase with a girl he knew nothing about. His watch vibrated, the display breaking up, “STOLENSTOLENSTO-” peaking through the cracks of the digital reality of the device. 

This was actually happening. 

Lance was going to die, or get tortured or imprisoned or _worse_. And Hunk was his best friend. If he couldn’t be there for Lance, possibly more than Lance has ever needed him before, what kind of a best friend was he? 

Oh _Lord_. This was actually happening.

Hunk, protector, stood strong and said, “Hey, Lance. Wait for me.” His best friend beamed back through the darkness and Hunk stalked down the steps.

Pidge pulled a raspberry-pi looking device from her immense messenger bag, stuck it onto the emergency exit display and pressed a button on her smartphone. The red lights flickered, and some part of Hunk hoped that the emergency alarm would trigger and this entire escapade would be put to rest and they could forget any of this ever happened. 

But the red lights shut off, and the only source of light in the stairwell came from Pidge’s phone. Lance could hear Hunk’s breath hitch, and Pidge opened the door. 

The hot wind wind greeted Lance’s sweaty forehead and the smell of decay and putrid biology washed over the three. Pidge stepped out onto the metal emergency staircase and began her descent into the urban jungle before them. 

Lance exhaled, steeled his nerves and churning stomach, and followed the girl into the unknown before him, Hunk close behind.

. . .

> “Alice in Wonderland, Alice down the rabbit hole, Alice out in Cyberspace, flung along the lines of data, flying across fields of light, the night cities that live only behind her eyes.”  
>  \- Melissa Scott

. . .

Lance grew up in the city. He had only seen real trees, rooted to the soil, once in his life at the only botanical garden in the city. His mother took him and his three brothers and two sisters, and Lance stood as close to the tree as possible, pretending he was inhaling the freshest oxygen in the world. Ever since them, he had an incurable affinity for houseplants.  
His bedroom, hardly bigger than the Garrison capsule, was filled to the brim with houseplants - clouding his room with the cleanest oxygen in the city - or so he liked to think.

The oxygen he was breathing now was the farthest possible thing from clean. He shoved his hands in his pockets, realizing now that he forgot his mask. Lance was the only city-native he knew that carried a mask to hide the scent of the stinking city. No one knew houseplants like him - no one knew how good oxygen could taste when it wasn’t tainted by gas and poison. 

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk walked briskly, tensely. Pidge had hardly said a word, and Lance wasn’t sure if he wanted her too. Intensity radiated off of her in waves, and she walked head first, shoulders leaning forward, making great strides despite her small stature.  
She had put her glasses on, the thin frames enveloped her entire face. The lenses lit up when she put them on, small LED devices embedded in the glass followed her irises as she scanned the streets before them. 

Compared to the pristine silence, uninterrupted stillness of the Garrison dorms after dark, the city streets buzzed with unadulterated energy. People smoked in the streets, their lighters scalding the bottom of ping-pong sized bowls exhaling crystalline clouds blowing from back alleys that smelled like chemicals and propane. 

The neon signs advertising tech, gadgets, food, and bodies lit their path with a rainbow and burned into their corneas - a minute brand on their being.

Lance saw an android take out the trash from a tiny, fish-scented restaurant. The purple hue to its skin indicated its artificiality - and signaled it out as one of the cheaper models, as well. Sometimes they were indistinguishable from real humans; those models were often used as sex dolls for billionaires, not quite human enough to be _morally_ wrong, but human enough to be appealing, sensual. 

There was only one regulation for the bots: all functioning models must be developed by Galtech and Galtech _only_. If your android wasn’t Galtech, it would be confiscated by the company’s meticulous security - then heaven knows what. If it _was_ , then you could do anything you wanted with the bot. 

They weren’t people - not by law or body or mind. 

Lance hated androids. He hated their glassy eyes, hated their plastic skin, hated that they thought they had a right to be alive. 

Hunk looked down at his watch. He could hear the soft beeping - almost silent - come from the device. He had no idea what it was trying to tell him, but Pidge seemed to have an idea. 

“This way,” she gestured, down an alley lit by paper lanterns and fairy lights and gaudy neon. 

The city felt dark - with its oppressive air of smoke and pollution - but in reality, light permeated every aspect of city life. You could practically taste the colors, the neon and fluorescent. 

Hunk didn’t want to say anything. He was here because Lance was here, and his mind was littered with regret and unease.

Pidge marched forward with determination. Thoughts fluttered in and out of existence in her head; she had never hoped this much in her life. Her heart still hammered in her throat, behind her eyes, at her fingertips. 

This was it - it felt like she was standing on the edge of the unknown, the end of the world, the start to a new life. 

He was stolen from her and she would do anything to get him back.

“So… you gonna explain of this or did you just want a friend for your midnight walk?” Lance asked. “Do you even know what’s actually going on?”

Pidge scanned Lance’s face and found no sign of animosity, no threat. Just curiosity and excitement. He quivered under her hazel glare - watching as the LED ring around her iris honed in on his face. He felt extraordinarily self-conscious.

“Do you always look at people like that? Yeesh, take a chill pill. Or eight,” Lance shivered. 

“You promised answers,” Hunk said from behind her. Hunk was smart and careful, Pidge thought. An excellent combination. He liked the rules a little too much for her comfort, however, and so she bore him with suspicion.

“Did you send that message? What was stolen from you? How do you know what it means? Who stole it from you?” Hunk asked, a mile a minute, voice wrought with anxiety.

Pidge huffed, “They took - stole - my brother. I’ve been looking for a sign like this for eleven months.”

“Who stole your brother?” Lance asked, at the same time Hunk inquired, “Why did they steal your brother?”

“I… don’t know who stole him. I have a suspicion, but that’s all. And I have no idea why they would take him, he’s a just a normal guy.” Matt wasn’t normal in any sense of the word, and Pidge felt like she was betraying him when she said it. But eccentricity isn’t a warrant for kidnapping.

Hunk crossed his arms, a brotherly look of disapproval written plain across his face. Pidge shivered. She wished he would stop.

“So you don’t really know anything. Why did you broadcast that _terrifying_ message?” Hunk accused.

“I know things!” Pidge defended, “But… I didn’t send the message,” she finished sheepishly.

“What the _hell_!” Lance and Hunk exclaimed simultaneously. Lance was grabbing his hair with his hands - doubt crept into his eyes for the first (and certainly not last) time since he had stepped onto the metal staircase and fallen down the rabbit hole. 

“If you didn’t send it, then how do you know what it is? You’re just going to trust a blind signal - it could be a trap, _or worse_ \- and, Christ, you have _no idea who sent it_!” Hunk exclaimed, his eyes wide in disbelief, uncertainty pulsing in his throat. Lance was shaking his head disapprovingly and Pidge realized how crazy she sounded. 

“Look, I know I sound insane-”

“Uh, no shit.”

“-but _trust me_. I know the kind of signal - the signature - I’m looking for.” That was a lie. This signal was a Galtech signal - and all of her research presented the contrary. Galtech wasn’t involved, the data said. _Fuck you_ , Pidge said back. Her gut told her tonight was the night and this signal was _the_ signal. “But by all means,” Pidge said, gesturing in the direction they just came, “if you don’t believe me, go back to the Garrison. Climb back to your capsule, if you can even get back inside. Hell, if they’ll even let you go back to _school_.”

Lance swallowed. She was right - one could only break curfew so many times for so long. Pidge and her raspberry pi was his only hope to get back inside the Garrison. Looking at the ashen color of Hunk’s face, Lance guessed he realized this too. 

“It’s your choice. Just like it was your choice to come with me in the first place. At least you have a choice. I _have_ to do this,” Pidge turned her back to the two and continued walking, shoulders set and head held high. 

Hunk and Lance stood still, marinating in the gravity of their decision. 

They followed her - neon and uncertainty illuminating their path.

. . .

They walked in silence for several heartbeats. No one speaking, all thinking different things - each thought rough and clouded.

“So, if you didn’t send the message, who did?” Lance asked, breaking the spell cast between the three.

“I… I don’t know. The signal with the location is different than the signal with the message,” Pidge responded, her voice wavering. She hated not knowing.  
“So how can you tell they’re related? How can you be sure this isn’t an elaborate prank?” Hunk asked cautiously. 

“I just know.”

Hunk groaned.

Pidge whirled around, looking Hunk directly in the eyes with laser precision,“Look, eleven months to this day my brother was taken from me. He’s my only family. He was one of the smartest programmers in the Garrison - but he had a low profile his entire life. He was normal. Ordinary. But suddenly he… disappeared. He didn’t come home for the weekend break and so I went to the Garrison. I don’t know, I thought he stayed behind studying, or _something_. But they had no idea who I was talking about. His name was gone - erased from the records forever. His capsule was reassigned, all his stuff _gone. It’s like he never existed_. None of his friends at the Garrison - and there weren’t many - knew who I was talking about. Do you know how hard it is to have the most important person in your life vanish from reality - no trace, no sign, no _nothing_? Do you know?” Pidge had tears in her eyes, hidden by the rainbow glare from the neon on her glasses.

Hunk and Lance were stunned into silence, the hot wind and the sounds of the city behind them their only companions. 

“I’m sorry, Pidge,” Lance said. Pidge knew he meant it.

“It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is finding Matt,” she responded, a little harshly. She continued at her brisk, determined pace.

“We still don’t know who sent the message. We need to be careful,” Hunk said, ever the voice of reason.

Lance shushed him, gesturing towards their shorter companion, whose tense frame was wrought with resolve. Hunk relented, and the two quickened their pace to match Pidge’s.

“Galtech HQ coming up,” Pidge said after a beat, a certain edge to her voice that Lance had never heard before. Lance hadn’t known her for very long. 

“I hate that building. Their architect should be fired,” Hunk added. Lance looked up, the ominous skyscraper stood in the distance, half-covered by clouds, dominating the skyline. Thin, straight, angles lined with purple neon, the Galtech logo bright, clear, violet in the center, purple light coming from the many dark-shaded glass windows. 

Hunk was right; that thing was _fugly_. 

But Lance just shrugged. He didn’t care about Galtech - they were just another company. A company that managed to dominate one of the largest cities in the world and acted as the standing government when bureaucracy had failed the masses, sure, okay, _fine_. But as far as Lance was concerned, the city was alive and thriving, even under the iron thumb of Galtech.

But Pidge shook with fury. Her eyes bore lasers into the black glass of Galtech HQ and the purple lights reflected themselves in her glasses. 

“You good, man? You look a little… pale,” Lance asked, eyebrows raised. 

“I’m fine,” Pidge replied, clearly not fine, “I agree with Hunk. It’s an ugly building. Turn left here.”

The trio continued down a less-bright alley, inching closer and closer towards the oppressive skyscraper. The beeping from Pidge and Hunk’s watches intensified and Lance’s heart rate skyrocketed. 

Galtech HQ loomed above them, but a walking distance away. This was the closest Lance had ever been to the building - the blackened heart of the city. He shivered, and Pidge broke into a run. 

“Where on Earth is she going?” Hunk asked Lance, and received a shrug in return. They followed suit.

Pidge couldn’t believe it. She remembered the tenor of her brother’s voice when she used to lay on his chest - she smelled the horrible Axe spray he _insisted_ was cool, she saw his rings and wrist bands and his veiny hands. She remembered comparing the sand-hue of their hair and she remembered her brother excitedly planning for their trip to the Mojave together - he waved his hands when he spoke. Waves. He waves his hands when he speaks, Pidge reminded herself. It had been eleven months since her brother disappeared from her life without a trace - her only family left. For eleven months she searched, asked, bribed, hacked, and still no sign. eleven months of hoping and eleven months of silence does something to one’s sanity. And the entire time, a bug remained under her skin, a nagging itch that wouldn’t go away. Whenever she looked at the Galtech building she felt sick to her stomach - she _knew_ there was something wrong with them but yet… all evidence pointed contrary. They were clean - or as clean as a mega-conglomerate pseudo-government could be. 

But still. In this city, Galtech was king. They were the the most powerful entity for hundreds of miles - this city was theirs and _only_ theirs. Galtech could keep order when government had failed, Galtech could create “life” out of code and machinery, Galtech could make someone disappear without a trace. 

It had to be them.

But time after time, search after search, Galtech proved to be innocuous. On the Internet, information is free. Unbridled, unaltered. There to anyone who looks. Nothing on Galtech's nefarious underbelly, no secrets, no scandals. Their record was spotless, perfect. Too perfect.

The blip in her earbud shook her from her fury. She’ll ask Matt when they found him. Knowing him, he took meticulous mental notes, documented every detail to ensure that this happens to no one ever again. She had so many questions to ask him. 

Her earbud blipped again and she directed Lance and Hunk to the darkest alleyway in the whole city. It was only a few hundred feet from Galtech's high-security invisible fence, and Lance could see the violet-tinged security guards patrolling the perimeter. 

There was something so wrong about them - their skin looked wrong, their energy felt wrong. Lance imagined what the inside of one them looked like - wires, grey, rubbery muscle, white exoskeleton where bones should be, oil-black blood. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

“What the _hell_ is that?” Hunk gasped. The terror in Hunk's voice was enough to snap Lance out of his stupor and glanced towards Hunk’s voice. Pidge was already running, Hunk followed close behind. Lance jogged towards the end of the alley, oozing caution and adrenaline. He didn’t really want to look, he was scared, honestly; but at the same time, he wanted nothing else in the world than to know what was lying in that alley. 

He stepped into the darkness. He heard Pidge’s, “Oh my God,” repeated softly, over and over. He heard Hunk’s slow and steady breathing, his friend trying to steel himself, maintain consciousness. A squelch underneath his shoe made his heart skip a beat and he saw sticky, red blood covering the pavement, streaked with viscous, inky oil. The rattle-wheeze of a dying man was accompanied by Pidge, cursing sharply. He looked up and saw a silhouette outlined by the bright greens and pinks of the city on the other side of the alley. A man was leaning, slumped and heavy, against the concrete wall. His shoulders heaved as he struggled for breath.

Lance inched closer.

And Lance thought _Hunk_ looked tired. This man looked like death, personified. He was clutching his own arm, which appeared to be an advanced cybernetic, sleek and black and perfectly inhuman. The junction between his cybernetic arm and his shoulder was a bloody red mess, scabbed and infected. His hair was short, cropped clean, touched with snow white strands born of immense stress and pain. An ugly scar ran across his face, stitches sticking out at every angle, crusted in blood. His dark eyes were framed by heavy bags and yellow-black bruises. But the irises were clear. 

This man knew where he was, what he was doing. He was awake.

“Is… is this your brother?” Lance’s voice came out as a croak. Pidge shook her head, tearing cloth from a spare shirt from her messenger bag. Hunk was helping the stranger up, and the man hissed in pain. 

“I have no idea who this is,” Pidge said, her voice stern and cold. Lance blinked in surprise at the animosity in her voice. She sighed, “But that doesn’t matter now. We have to help him. Maybe he knows something about my brother.”  
Pidge wrapped a makeshift bandage around the stranger’s arm, taking note of his impressive augmentation. It was perfectly smooth, printed to perfection. It didn’t take kindly to his flesh, judging by the infection, but it whirred with power and capability. It reminded her of an android’s arm.

Which could only mean one thing.

“What’s your name?” Hunk asked, softly. He treated the stranger with extreme tenderness, gingerly supporting his human arm, careful of his broken body and shattered mind. 

“Shiro,” the man gasped, voice hardly louder than a whisper.

“It’s going to be okay, Shiro. We’re going to take you somewhere safe, let you rest a bit,” Hunk said, voice kind and soothing. In reality, he was terrified. He didn’t know this battered stranger in the slightest; Hunk didn’t know who he had hurt to end up this way.

The man must have enemies. 

He looked grotesque and smelled like petroleum and iron. He coughed, black oil and red blood sputtered from his mouth.

“Where can we take him?” Lance said, now supporting the stranger’s other side, steeling himself as he felt the smooth black carbon fiber of the cybernetic brush against his neck.

“My old home is a bit of a walk away, but it’s safe and empty. If we can carry him that far,” Pidge eyed the stranger warily - there was no way they could walk the bleeding stranger to her flat without garnering unwanted attention.

“Well, we can’t keep him here,” Hunk said, “he seriously needs help.”

“No one’s disagreeing with that, Hunk. But he kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.” Pidge glanced towards the stranger’s human arm - his knuckles were bloody and his fingers were swollen. “No offense,” she directed towards the man.

“We have to take him _somewhere_ ,” Lance said. The stranger was _heavy_ , and he shifted uncomfortably under the man’s weight. “First priority: not here,” Lance added, suddenly aware of the violet-tinted guards and the looming skyscraper above them.

 _This_ is what was stolen? This man, hardly thirty years old, was stolen, changed and twisted? Who was he taken from? Who took him? Was he like Pidge’s brother? Were there more like him? 

Lance shivered at the implication, inky tendrils of cold and fear spreading inside him. 

“Agreed,” Hunk and Pidge replied, clearly as uneasy as Lance. 

The stranger limped towards the glowing end of the alley, Lance and Hunk acting as his legs. 

Pidge kept watch, switching her glasses on to their night-vision mode. She tried as hard as possible stifle her disappointment - but she could feel her body slowing, nausea growing. 

He was supposed to be here, he was supposed to be _alive_ and here and with her. If this wasn’t it, then what _could_ be? What if he was truly gone, and Pidge just had to accept that she was endlessly alone - drifting solo in the city of a million souls? 

Now is not the time to be selfish, she reminded herself, ultimately in vain, and as saliva rapidly filled her mouth her knees became weak.

She didn’t hear the quick footsteps behind her, or the familiar sound of a switchblade - chagrin cast an impregnable fog over her senses. 

A high-pitched ringing in Pidge’s ears accompanied the gravel-voice of the hooded, masked figure from the far side of the alley.

. . .

Lance couldn’t believe any of this was happening. He would wake up, a minute later, sweating but safe in his capsule. His imagination played the dirtiest tricks, he assured himself, as the _zsching_ of a switchblade echoed behind him.

He was inside a fishtank and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear Hunk’s muffled plea, couldn’t feel.

This was all a dream, he told himself, as an unknown voice warned, whispered, rough and hot, 

“You’re not taking him anywhere.” 

It’ll be fine, Lance thought, I’m going to wake up soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! see you next thursday, hopefully.


	2. Floor Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things escalate. it can only go up from here, folks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be honest, i was in a haze the entire time i was writing this. so, sorry about that.
> 
> thanks for reading anyway

CHAPTER TWO: FLOOR ROUTINE

Hunk heard the muffled slump of Pidge behind him - her body worn by stress and failure - and he saw the light in Lance’s eyes retreat, his sclera cloud over and his conscious brain fade. He was still walking, straight ahead single-file, but he wasn’t thinking. 

Hunk had never seen Lance like this - silent and empty. He was just a kid - and what Hunk knew of his home life - this was the most trauma he’d ever experienced in his entire life.

Hunk _really_ started to panic when he sensed the presence from the other side of the alley.

Shiro groaned in discomfort and pain. 

“ _Lance_. Lance, man, come on, I need help here,” Hunk pleaded, Shiro staggering - black and blood dribbling out of his mouth.

“You’re not taking him anywhere.” 

“Lance! Please! Wake up, you’re okay. You’re still walking, you’re okay. I need _you_ \- come on,” Hunk said, voice wavering as the footsteps behind him increased in volume.

. . .

Lance liked to rub his eyes to the point where the inner corners burned and it felt like there was sand underneath his eyelids. He liked to look at the white-smooth material of his capsule and watch the colorful jellyfish and sputtering spots drift across his field of vision. Strobe lights blinked in his periphery and he could see the world through a technicolor lens and could almost pretend he wasn’t a third-rate cadet with failing grades and a listless spirit.

But those were tomorrow’s problems.

Today, an angry hooded stranger with a hot voice was charging him and his friends with a switchblade.

What a _day_.

Hunk said he needed him - needed _Lance_ \- and he switched into cop-mode, seamlessly, because his best friend said he truly needed him.

He dropped Shiro’s arm, ignoring Hunk’s protest and Shiro’s cry, and raised his fists in combat.  
When he fought, he was like water. He was soft and cutting, graceful without being flashy. Quicksilver smooth - blue silk. He was a talented fighter - when he wasn’t being commanded to do it for a grade. 

The stranger was fast, too. And noisy. He moved in short bursts, his blade like the flame at the end of a lighter. His hood fell off - the majority of his face still masked - and Lance could feel the fury in his dark eyes and the emotion in his heart. He switched the blade between his hands, never touching it for too long like he was scared of burning himself, as the stranger stuck and yelled - hot, rough voice muffled by his half-faced mask.

“I’m sure we can - ” Lance grinned, adrenaline sparking his spirit, “ - talk this out!”

“Give him _back_!” the man yelled, flicking his blade, dancing on the balls of his feet. “Shiro!” he called, and his utter desperation echoed in the concrete alley.

“You guys friends? We found him first!” Lance taunted, dancing and swerving in return, mirroring the stranger’s movements - counteracting like ice to fire. He aimed for a hook to the man’s jugular and missed as Shiro groaned like there was gravel in his throat. Lance turned his head - he had forgotten the man was there. 

“...Keith.”

The stranger’s eyes widened - and he used Lance’s distraction to sucker punch him in the stomach. The wind rushed out of Lance’s lungs and he staggered back.

“Shiro!” the man screamed again, more pain this time, running lightning-fast toward his target.

Hunk helped Shiro lean against the concrete wall of the sweltering alley which stunk of oil and sweat and iron. He distanced himself from the bleeding man, hands raised in a defensive posture, ready to protect the stranger he met fifteen minutes ago. 

“Keith, it’s okay,” Shiro said, a little more strength in his voice, “they’re safe.”

Keith straight past Hunk and collapsed on his knees, his pants soaking in his friend’s blood.

“Are _you_ safe?” Keith said as he removed his mask. Hunk could see his eyebrows drawn, the glimmer of tears in his eyes. 

“I’m fine,” Shiro whispered. Blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth and Keith looked at him incredulously. He began crushing up a small pill he pulled from his pocket and pushed the crumbs into Shiro’s bloody mouth. He used his right hand.

Hunk said, “We found him in this alley about twenty minutes ago. I swear we just met. He was like this before - except alone.” He could sense the strong bond between the two men and could feel the worry radiating off the smaller one in waves. 

Hunk empathized more than the man knew. 

Keith looked at Shiro and Shiro looked at Keith, who turned to Hunk and stared him straight in the eyes. “I believe you,” Keith said, “for now.” Keith noticed something - movement, light, sound - behind Hunk, who swiveled to see Pidge limping, leaning on Lance.

“I’m so sorry,” Pidge breathed, “I don’t know what happened. I just - ” Hunk raised his hand to silence her. Her shoulders shuddered and he gave her a hug. “I was so sure it was him,” she whispered into Hunk’s vest, her eyes dry and fingertips numb.

Meanwhile, Lance stalked over to where Keith kneeled and Shiro huddled. “ _You_ ,” Lance pointed his finger at Keith, “sucker-punched me! In the gut! I know you for like, two seconds - and you punch me straight in the stomach. Hi, _stranger_ , the name’s Lance,” he bit, mockingly extending his hand. “You owe me some answers.”

Keith hardly looked up from Shiro’s wounds. “We were fighting,” he said flatly.

“I was unarmed!”

“You were trying to punch my throat!” Keith defended, rising to meet Lance’s eye.

“You had a _menacingly_ shiny knife.” Lance wasn't even really trying now. There was something about this stranger that made him feel different - giddy and playful - voice full of false venom and hidden laughs.

Keith opened his mouth to say something but instead exhaled through his nose and returned to Shiro below him, clearly done with this conversation and _certainly_ not willing to admit it.

 _Man_ , this stranger was _fun_. 

“How do you two know each other, anyway?” Hunk said from behind Lance. Pidge emerged with him and rushed over to Shiro’s side, hardly acknowledging Keith as she resumed her bandage work.

“I’m his brother,” Keith said, stiffly - caution in his voice and in his eyes.

“What, don't trust us?” Lance said, and Keith bristled. “ _We_ saved him, after all. I think we’ve earned a little goddamn respect.” Hunk scolded Lance with his eyes.

Keith looked at Shiro again, silently asking for approval. Shiro nodded, a little delirious from the pill.

“Not here. I’ll tell you what I know. Shiro seems to trust you. So let’s go.” Keith hoisted Shiro onto his back, Hunk rushing to help. Keith regarded him with suspicion, but eventually relented. Pidge and Lance walked side by side and the five retreated into the light, minds buzzing, knuckles burning, all wondering what the future would hold.

. . .

> “No matter where you go, everyone’s connected.”  
>  \- Lain Iwakura

. . .

She was a fighter, she had to remind herself. She failed, collapsed, because she fought too hard for eleven months and let nagging, irritating hope cloud her judgement. That was not okay -never again, she vowed. No one would die because of her, because she would trade one life for another. When Lance asked her if she was okay, she had to bite her tongue and steel her heart, say okay, because that was all she was going to be from now on. Okay. It was all she could afford to be.

. . .

Hunk would be lying if he said he didn’t feel awkward. The kid hardly spoke, instead just gave off this aura of energy and tension. It kind of freaked Hunk out. He couldn’t be more than twenty years old, face hardened and body taut like a much older man. His hair was thick, dark, and unruly, curling around his face and down his neck, stopping just before his shoulders. Dressed in all black techwear, hair a miniature thundercloud, eyes cold and dark and silent; Hunk felt awkward.

Between the dying man, the black-haired kid, and the Garrison cadet still dressed in his standard-issue clothes, they were like a post-modern circus sideshow.

“So. You, uh, from around here?” Hunk asked - immediately kicking himself for asking such a _dumb_ question. Shiro winced, be it from pain or second-hand embarrassment - the world will never know

“I live over there,” Keith gestured with his head, then resumed his - what Hunk assumed to be - usual silence. 

“Nice place,” Hunk said. He lied. The place was many, many things - nice being the one thing it wasn’t. It was a small apartment building, off white, rust colored stains leaching from the fascia of pipes that clogged its facade. Three circular windows in a line decorated the building’s face from the front, each window a cyclopean eye crying red rust. A sickly blue light glowed from the top window, casting the building with a chemical flair.

“Not really,” Keith said. “That one’s mine.” He pointed to the top window, the one that glowed from within with radioactive intensity.

Hunk looked behind him, Pidge and Lance followed closely. Lance was chatting about something, anything to fill the silence, and Pidge looked… pale. Hunk made a mental note to talk to her later. 

Keith unlocked the side door, the beep of his watch against the electronic lock was accompanied by the loud roar of the street adjacent.

The five climbed crusty linoleum stairs to the top floor. “Home shit home,” Lance muttered, wrinkling his nose at the definite chemical smell emanating from the building.

“It’s mine. It’s cheap,” Keith said, once again unlocking the off-white door to the apartment within.

. . .

They say a person’s room is a window to their soul - their psyche. The inner workings of their mind. If that was true, then someone needed to get Keith to a goddamn therapist, _stat_.

The apartment was a singular open space, light pollution pouring in from the wide-eyed window. A tiny bathroom flickered, a leaky faucet dripped. Empty takeout containers, dark clothes, papers, pens, wires littered the wood floors. Notes and posters, diagrams, charts, printed pictures covered the walls, each lovingly graffitied by messy, scrawling script with uneven letters and sporadic spacing. A hologram model of Galtech HQ stood on a desk with a speaker, plates, more papers. Lance saw a bedroll peek out from underneath a bundle of wires clumped together like a group of snakes. The entire room was illuminated by three huge computer screens - glowing nuclear aquamarine - and a small red lava lamp that perched hazardously close to the monitors. 

“Keith, I know I’ve been gone a while, but you’ve really let this place go,” Shiro murmured.

Keith pulled spare cushions from a hidden cabinet and plopped them unceremoniously on the floor. He gestured to them briefly. “I’ve been under a lot of stress,” he responded, then retreated into the bathroom. Shiro followed suit. 

Pidge chuffed, then sat on one of the cushions, clearly unbothered by the mess. Lance could not relate. His own room was always meticulously clean, if only out of necessity from living in a small shared space. With utmost caution, he lowered himself onto a pillow. Pidge laughed at the scowl on his face. Hunk walked over to the monitors, tripping on wires and a spare cell phone along the way. His eyes widened, face washed with the sickly blue-green. 

“Guys, Keith wrote ‘STOLEN’ over… everything,” He hesitated, feeling guilty for prying. But it was amazing, just one word, spread across his entire desk. Different words were written along the walls, chicken-scratch illustrations added onto maps and photographs. Keith was quite the investigator. Not such a craftsman, however, Hunk thought as he eyed the shoddy amalgamation of half-finished thoughts and empty bottles.

“He’s gotta know _something_ ,” Pidge said with conviction “all I want are some fucking answers.”

Hunk and Lance stood still in surprise, and for a second Pidge was truly afraid Hunk would berate her for her ‘dropping an f-bomb’. 

Instead he just sighed, hand on her head, “Me too, Pidge. Me too.”

Lance stretched like a cat, yawning. When he wanted to break curfew, mess around a bit, this was absolutely not what he had in mind - to end up sitting in a stranger’s rat-nest apartment while the blood of a once-dying man dryed on his jacket. 

He wasn’t sure if he was complaining, though.

Keith and Shiro emerged from the bathroom, Shiro wearing fresh bandages, wounds free of blood. His face still looked pale and he winced when he walked, but he looked multitudes better than when he was dying in a concrete back-alley.

“What are you doing?” Keith said to Hunk, his tone accusatory. Hunk backed away from the monitors, hands up. “Just looking,” he said sheepishly.

Pidge sprung up from the floor, brows furrowed, finger pointing at Keith. “You said you’d tell us what you know. We came here for answers,” she insisted. Keith stared at her - blankly, without reaction.

“Were you the one that sent that freaky message? And did you have to be so melodramatic about it? Okay, ‘STOLEN’. We get the hint, man. Chill,” Lance said, lazily.

“I didn’t send it.”

“You seemed to know about it though,” Hunk gestured to the scratchy script. 

Keith sighed and looked to Shiro, who was leaning against a grimy wall washed in the glow of the computer screens. Shiro nodded, and Keith spoke. “I’ve been getting that message my entire life,” he admitted, moving towards the monitors - the axis of the flat - careful not to disturb the contents of the floor. Muscle memory and care.

“It would be an email, or a text. Or my monitors would glitch and all I could see was that word. I had no idea what it meant then. If only…” Keith’s voice dropped off.

“If only I knew that it was a warning. Then Shiro wouldn’t have been stolen from me.”

“Wait. Waitwaitwait. You’re saying this word was… some sort of forecast - sent to you over the course of your _entire life_? That it was some sick sort of mind game, warning you about the inevitable capture of your brother decades in the future?” Hunk cried, his palm pressed against his forehead. “And, you had no idea what it could mean, so you just… waited in agony for your entire life? That’s like, twenty years of not knowing.”

Keith nodded.

“Dude, that _sucks_.”

Keith nodded again.

“It got really bad when Keith moved in with me and my dad,” Shiro added, “He’d get a message every day - sometimes more than one.”

“So that’s why you think that message is about you?” Pidge spoke up, staring Shiro in the eye, her pupils white from the LEDs. 

“Yeah. The day before I… disappeared… we got the message over seventy times.”

“That’s not right,” Pidge protested. “This message was about my brother. It had to be.”

“Your brother?” Shiro asked, his eyes tired and soft.

“My brother was taken - stolen - from me eleven months ago. He’s my only family. I’ve been searching ever since,” Pidge said. She looked at the ground, not sure if she wanted to know what the room was thinking. _They could keep their pity_ , she thought, _I’m getting him back_.

Keith looked at her with wide eyes, frozen still. He didn’t say anything at all.

“That’s horrible, Pidge,” Shiro lamented. Pidge looked up in surprise. He had just endured countless torture, kidnap, pain, and he felt sorry for _her_. 

“I… thank you,” she said softly. 

“Did you ever meet a man? He looks like me - same hair, glasses. Tall and skinny. Speaks fast?” she asked, and hoped her desperation wasn’t too loud.

“I remember a lot of lights. They were white, and harsh as anything. I remember these tests… mind games. They never ended. There were these tubes of water with green lights in them… it’s funny, I remember thinking the green lights were the most beautiful things in the world after staring at those white ones all day. There were lots of men. Women, too. Children. People. I remember…” Shiro’s face turned pale and his left hand tremored. He stared at his cybernetic. He couldn’t look away; he felt pain and nausea swell in his stomach and he tried to stop himself from thinking about it. 

He couldn’t.

Keith was at his side at lightning speed - not touching him, but instead whispering things in his ear. Shiro breathed heavily, tasting the dry and hot air on his tongue, air _strangely_ free of ammonia and formaldehyde. “I’m okay,” he exhaled. 

He wasn’t.

“Who took you?” Hunk asked, cautious and soft.

“Galtech.” 

The hairs on Pidge’s neck stood up. 

“What? That’s insane. Why on Earth would Galtech kidnap and torture innocent people? All they do make droids,” Lance insisted.

“I don’t know either. But I’m sure it was them - their insignia is branded in my memory,” Shiro replied.

“I’ve been studying Galtech ever since Shiro disappeared a year ago. I can’t get anything on them, but a lot of people have been disappearing. A lot. Without a trace, too,” Keith added. “I always… felt… something was off about them,” he pointed to the walls plastered with paper, “the signal tonight finally confirmed it.”

“Thank God, I’m not crazy,” Pidge muttered under her breath. “I’ve been doing the same since Matt disappeared, eleven months ago. I always knew something was wrong with them, but I didn’t know it would be _this_ wrong,” she said, and Keith nodded in solidarity.

“Okay, that answers one question - but creates a thousand more. Like how did Galtech manage to kidnap Shiro and wipe Matt from existence? Why would they even _want_ to in the first place? What’s their end goal here?” Hunk thought out loud.

“I have an idea _how_ -” Pidge began, only to stop suddenly - and jump in surprise when Shiro cried out in agony. 

Shiro hissed sharply, purple light emanating from his robotic arm. The cybernetic’s outer layer shifted into geometric pieces, each piece rotating around the arm with mechanical precision and a grating, artificial whirring. 

“Shiro… what’s happening…” Keith asked - voice held low, sentence more a warning than a question.

“Plug me in,” Shiro panted, “into the computer. USB. There’s a port right here.” He pointed at a small hole in his cybernetic with his shaking left hand.

“Shiro, that arm’s Galtech. We have no idea what it can do - what it means,” Pidge warned.

“Do it. Trust me.” Shiro limped over to the array of monitors, wincing and holding his violet-washed, shifting arm with his human hand. 

Hunk found a cable amid the veritable sea of cables and quickly attached it to Shiro’s arm - a bridge between the foreign cybernetic and Keith’s entire network of information, data, thoughts.

Lance thought breaking curfew at the Garrison was the end-all-be-all of bad ideas. Key word: _thought_. His stomach churned with the idea of Galtech having access to the entirety of the miniature investigation against them - and what it would mean for _him_. He could go to jail, arrested as an accomplice, he’d never see his family again, he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars, his life would end at twenty-one years old.

He looked up at Keith, who was slightly pale and sweating. And Lance thought he felt nervous. But despite his entire future being at stake, Keith didn’t protest. He stood by and watched, not saying a word. Lance guessed that if anyone else besides Shiro had done the same, Keith would’ve punched them in the face.

 _Or the gut_ , he thought. 

The sickly green of the monitors flickered out of existence. They were replaced by glitchy, flashing black; bold white coordinates splashed across the screen: 

34º 3’ 34.761” N, 118º 14’ 23.768” W. 

“What the shit is that supposed to mean?” Lance exclaimed.

“It’s not a Galtech signature, that’s for sure…” Hunk mused.

Pidge confirmed, nodding her head. “It’s also not the same person who keeps sending the ‘STOLEN’ message, but it matches almost… wait no, _perfectly_ with whomever sent the navpoint with Shiro’s location.”

“The people that saved me,” Shiro stared absently. 

“We have to go to those coordinates.” Keith lept into action, grabbing a red jacket from the floor. It was 91º outside.

“I agree with Keith,” Pidge said, shooting up from her cushion like a spring, “these are the people that really know what’s going on.”

“Now hold on-” Hunk warned, worry creeping into his words.

“Could be fun,” Lance said, nonchalantly. On the inside, his heart was racing.

“Fun?! Are you kidding me?” Hunk looked at Lance like he sprouted an extra head. Lance, Keith, and Pidge headed to the door, anticipation heavy in the air surrounding them.

Shiro stayed behind, looking Hunk directly in the eyes. “Hunk, we need to know what’s happening. This is the only way we can make sure it never happens to anyone else, ever again.” The sheer resolve in his voice startled Hunk. Not two hours ago, the man was close to death, shuddering for breath. Now he stood tall, strong, willing to sacrifice himself so people he would never meet wouldn’t have to suffer like he had suffered. Hunk stepped towards Shiro with caution and trust, calm and scared. 

“Okay,” he relented, and followed the man with silver hair into the flickering hallway lined with tumult and turmoil.

. . .

Keith would prefer that he stayed a silent observer - a watcher, a fly on the wall - than ever interact with another human being again. It wasn’t that he hated people; in fact, he adored people for their differences, each one a fingerprint, an entirely unique individual that no one person could ever exactly imitate for the rest of history. Sonder was one of his favorite words.

That being said, if he never talked to another person again, that would be fine.

The city was a great place to sit and watch but never touch. He watched people lean down to pet a street cat, he watched a child drool with envy at another’s red-bean popsicle, he watched a man trip over a crack in the sidewalk then laugh to himself. He watched a woman roll a joint using old newspaper in the middle of the day, he saw a man piss in an alley trash can while swaying to the tune of Cher’s “Believe”. The little things that made people who they are - the utter humanity they expressed when no one was looking told multitudes about their life story, their little personal history.

That’s why he watched the man who grinned at him with elation and glee when Keith shoved a knife in his face. He didn’t know Lance, so he watched. The little details - like how he walked with his toes, or wore a leather band around his left hand and used his right to gesture wildly in conversation, the small freckle he probably didn’t know about on the back of his ear. Keith stared at him with quiet intensity, thrilled to drink in his freckles and blue eyes and lilting voice.

He didn’t exactly know why.

The hot wind - a wave of garbage and city stench, city life - pushed Keith’s long bangs back from his face. He had lived in this city his entire life and still wasn’t sure if it was home. 

“Hey, Keith. Dude pissing at your nine o’clock,” Lance sniggered, pointing to the man in question. Keith wondered how he could be so lighthearted in the face of such uncertainty. 

He looked up at the lights and skyline ahead - each window an expression of life, of humanity. A view into the private life of someone he would never meet. 

The smell of frying meat wafted throughout the tiny street . Small, twenty-four hour food shops were popular in this part of town - bringing solace and a reason to live for its starving patrons. Keith saw an android smile and take a customer’s order from behind the neon-lined window and felt inexplicably sad. This always happened when he saw the mechanical creatures out amongst the organic - personalities, bodies, thoughts so human - but programmed to live out their shortened lives doing whatever their maker willed. 

The distortion of life, corruption of joy, theft of freedom. 

“There, I think,” Shiro pointed at the basement level of the little restaurant, an innocuous, subterranean black door with a small stairway leading to the entrance. Keith noticed Shiro was wearing a jacket in the ninety-degree weather. In Shiro’s defense, Keith was too. For different reasons, probably. Keith just liked the feel of his jacket, a second skin, a layer of armor.

“Under the food place? Man, that basement must smell awesome,” Hunk said with forced humor. Keith had been watching him, too, and saw the nervous tap of his fingers against his vest. 

Keith walked with quickened pace down the few steps, Lance close behind like a shadow. Keith tugged on the doorknob to no avail. “It’s locked,” he stated. 

“Wait, I have an idea,” Pidge spoke up. Keith noticed her spirit, her tenacity. Her eyes were just as watchful as his. She was the only one who knew what it was like to have your only family ripped from existence. He appreciated that.

“Shiro, you try it,” she suggested. He complied, stepping forward and twisting the knob with his right arm. A click and a swish, and the black door opened to a gaping hallway illuminated by soft blue and pink lights. 

“Down the rabbit hole,” Hunk muttered, swallowing back his fear. He stepped into the light, softly treading down the vast hall. The walls were white, dimly lit by the colorful lights. Hunk was convinced years had passed until they saw the next door. Shiro opened it once again. 

The gap between normalcy and the storm widened even more when the five saw what lay past the door.

The room was cavernous, with low ceilings and a neon facade. Pink and blue clashed on the white walls, rows of monitors filled the vacuous space, and wires hung from the ceilings like a ribbon canopy. 

The screens flickered, STOLENSTOLENSTOLE repeated on _monitor after monitor_. 

A woman stood in the corner of the room, lounging on a blue hanging egg-chair. Her dark skin complimented her snow white, immaculate bob, bangs cut straight, hair framing her lovely face. Her piercing, unnaturally blue eyes bore holes into the five strangers who wandered into Wonderland. 

“I see you’ve found your way at last,” her silky voice carried across the room and she grinned, wide and true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, thanks so much for reading. i'd love to hear questions, comments, criticisms, anything at all - in this comment section or on my [blog](http://www.kadarareyes.tumblr.com/).
> 
> EDIT: i have no idea wtf is going on with that second author's note, so im sorry about that!!  
> EDIT TWO: fixed it. goddamn, microsoft should hire me.


	3. Expert System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hmm hmm the plot thickens....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick note: i'm going to try and give every character equal screen time - thought blurbs, personal growth, the works. everyone has a place within team voltron.
> 
> we're getting towards the end of the exposition here, and to be honest i'm sorry it's taking so long to set up! thank you all for your patience. 
> 
> SPECIAL SHOUTOUT to tumblr user @nikita-the-great for making some awesome [fan art](https://68.media.tumblr.com/c5d864920283040a859a4a48b241d43d/tumblr_messaging_os7r915Kc71uuv1z9_250.png) of the bayard watches for this fic! thank you so much.

CHAPTER THREE: EXPERT SYSTEM

The woman’s lightly accented voice carried across the room. She was beautiful - her upturned eyes and full lips and short white hair constituted an almost ethereal, alien aesthetic. Her smile reached her sparkling blue irises - bluer than the ocean or the sky. Her pupils were pink - indicating their status as cybernetics. Her legs dangled off the egg chair, slightly kicking the air - which was pregnant with silence. Lance blushed furiously, and Hunk rolled his eyes.

“You sent the signal - the message and the coordinates! You rescued Shiro.” Pidge exclaimed, gesturing towards the rows of monitors with the familiar stolen letters splayed across them. 

“ _We_ didn't send the stolen message. But you're right. We sent the coordinates and rescued Shiro.” The woman replied. 

“What? How did you know we’d even follow them?” Pidge protested. 

“We’ve been expecting you for some time now.” She spoke with confidence - her voice oozing assuredness and power.

“What are you talking about? Who’s been expecting us? What is this place?” Shiro interrogated, stepping forward to look the woman in the eye.

“My name,” she rose, meeting Shiro’s stance, “is Allura. And this is my Lion’s Den.” She gestured to the wide room in front of them, her smile cool and collected.

“So you’re saying you sent the signal - the navpoint with Shiro’s location? You saved him… but why?” Pidge asked, her eyes wide open - in awe of the powerful technology and pure potential surrounding her. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of resentment towards the strange woman in front of her 

“We saved him because it was the right thing to do-”

“Cut the bullshit,” Pidge said angrily, “you knew there were more prisoners - more victims, suffering and in… utter agony. Why did you only save one man? How did you reconcile yourself to damning hundreds to save one?” Pidge knew she was being illogical as she blinked away tears. But she had to know.

Allura’s calm voice took on the slightest edge. “Rescuing a man from the toughest security in the entire country can be rather _taxing_ on the only three members of an organization,” she said. “And besides, you have no idea what we do here.”

“Tell us then.”

“We are the Lion’s Den - a ‘terrorist’ organization, as deemed by Galtech,” she laughed slightly, “but our true mission is to _free the masses_ from the iron yoke of tyranny and the oppression of organic life by Galtech. They hide behind the mask of… ‘democracy’ and ‘order’ - but we all know what goes on behind the shadows.” She stared at Shiro.

“You’re right,” she said, looking down at Pidge, “we chose to save one and leave the rest. But if we hadn’t have rescued Shiro, the hundreds of millions that live in this city would be damned to suffer under Galtech for eternity.”

“Okay, so, you don’t like Galtech. Sure, they’ve done bad things, but… hasn’t every company? And maybe they have this… mask of government, or whatever, but they’re _pretty good_ at keeping order. Doesn’t that benefit everyone?” Hunk shifted nervously - he felt all eyes on him. Watching, judging.

“Galtech… destroyed my family,” Allura’s misty voice and blue eyes faded far away, drifting in the remnants of a long-past memory. “They stole my father from me.”

“Your father was stolen from you - like I was stolen?” Shiro asked.

“Similar, but… not exactly.” Allura hesitated. “He wasn’t the only person taken - you all know that already. Shiro, your brother Matt-” Pidge blinked in surprise “-thousands of human beings with lives and dreams and families were stolen from the people that loved them and subjected to unspeakable torture. None were ever seen again. Until now.”

Shiro stood still and silent - the improbability of his existence and the thin thread of his life wore down his soul to tatters. 

“How on _Earth_ did you know about Matt? About any of this?” Pidge inquired, her mind racing.

“Technology is powerful,” Allura gestured towards the largest screen in the room. Lance recognized the winding alleys and uncontained streets of his home - each street alight with tiny white blips. “But no where near as powerful as the human eye,” she smiled. “Each one of those contacts is a… lion keeper. They feed me any information they see, and in return for their loyalty, we provide them with our services, whatever they may be.”

“So, you’re like a dealer? Dealing out the good stuff for a little bit of info?” Lance asked. He didn’t exactly want to acknowledge what was happening - that he escaped into the middle of the night and found not solace and quiet fun but… the intrigue of revolution. He was more than a little overwhelmed.

“I give them whatever they may need - drugs, protection, a home,” Allura responded.

Hunk’s brain was spinning. What the _hell_ was he doing here? He could feel tendrils of fear unfurl themselves in his insides. He was just a mechanic - a damn good one, one of the best - but he was destined to graduate from the Garrison and program androids for the rest of his life. His future lay with Galtech - revolution of _any kind_ was strictly off the table. Machines were machines, companies were companies, people were people. 

Hunk had no time for all that grey. He was too busy trying to stay alive.

And rebellion against the biggest, most powerful company in the country - the one that maintained order, kept the city from dissolving to chaos and ruin - was the _exact opposite_ of trying to stay alive. A one-way ticket to certain death. 

Yeah. No thanks.

“Lance, Pidge, can I talk to you for a sec?” Hunk asked nervously. The two shrugged and followed him to the hallway. Hunk closed the door, then took a deep breath.

“What is all of this, guys? Are you seriously thinking about… doing this? Christ, I don’t even know what ‘doing this’ even means! We gotta get back to the Garrison soon anyways, if we’re gonna have any chance of getting back inside.”

“Hunk, you’re _kidding_ me. This is our chance to fight back against Galtech - the bastards that took my brother! I… feel like I’ve waited my whole life for this chance. Now it’s here,” Pidge crossed her arms, her confidence palpable. “I’m not going back. Not ever.”

Hunk sighed, hand covering his eyes. “Ugh. Fair enough. Can we at least have your raspberry pi?”

Pidge fished for the device in her bag, then handed the device to Hunk. She disappeared behind the door to her new life of danger and revolt. 

Hunk wondered if he would ever see her again, then squashed that thought down as fast as it appeared.

He looked at the small green device in his hands. His key to freedom, his future.

“C’mon, Lance. Let’s go home.”

Lance looked around nervously, not meeting Hunk’s eyes. His feet were rooted firmly to the ground like a tree.

“Lance?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I never, ever expected to have these thoughts running through my head - I have never once even considered rebellion or revolution or… whatever. I don’t know if I belong here.”

Hunk nodded.

“But I don’t know if I belong at the Garrison, either. It was a 40/60 chance of me even getting in in the first place. I’m failing my classes. I’m not exactly ‘cop-material.’”

Hunk stood silent in disbelief. His best friend - stolen from him by the whispers of revolution.

“This feels like an opportunity I never would have dreamed of. Think of the odds, man.” Lance looked up at Hunk, smiling slightly. His eyes wistful and far away. “What the fuck else am I gonna do with my life anyway? I’m no one. This is my only real chance to be someone. I’ve lived for twenty-one years thinking that I would never make a difference in the world. I think I’m going to change that now.”

“Lance, you’re not no one. If you come back to the Garrison, you can actually have a life. You join with these guys, you’ll be dead in five years.” Hunk pleaded, fear poisoned his voice.

“No. I know what I want. I don’t care what’s at stake,” Lance replied with alien confidence. “You can go, man. No hard feelings.” He looked at his best friend directly in his eyes, tears glossing his irises. “See you soon. Have a good life.” Lance closed the door and Hunk shuddered - pink lights and silence his only companions.

. . .

Hunk didn’t often curse. He remembered when he was sixteen years old and his brother was hit by a passing truck - not speeding, or drunk - pure accident. He remembered thinking in that flash-second of a life without his little brother, his best friend. Hunk felt fear and failure - he knew that, if his brother died, he would never, ever forgive himself; not even when his brother’s bones were dust and his flesh the soil and his name nothing more than a whisper on his lips - Hunk would never forgive himself.

Hunk cursed then. Loudly, too.

His brother lived - but Hunk vowed never to let the people he loved take a direct hit - true pain - ever again. Hunk was the strong one, he knew he could make it through hell and back. He had to take it so others wouldn’t have to because he knew he could handle it. He couldn’t say the same for others - he wasn’t so sure they could survive the fire like he could. So he survived it for them.

“Fuck.” 

The curse was quiet, Hunk was quiet. He stepped back into the vacuous room with the sea of screens and said goodbye to everything he ever knew without a tear.

. . .

> “But that was then, and then is a world away from now.”  
>  \- Sam A. Patel

. . .

Hunk emerged from the other side and immediately caught sight of Lance’s face - like the sun’s rays shining through soft, pink clouds and splitting into a thousand beams. It was almost worth leaving behind normalcy, everything he ever knew.

 _Almost_.

Allura was back in her egg chair, looking rather pleased with herself. “All here, I see,” she said with the voice of a woman who knew true trust in _people_.

“You said you had three members before. Now you have eight,” Shiro said with intensity.

“Wait, who were the other two?” Lance inquired.

Allura spoke softly into her watch, “Coran.” Beats later, a well-built man wearing a thick black turtleneck and a long black coat emerged from a side-door. A ginger mustache perched confidently above his upper lip, and Lance had to stop himself from recoiling.

“Frrrresh blood…” the man said, wiggling his fingers, in what Lance assumed to be a Transylvanian accent. 

_Okay_.

No one in the room laughed, and Coran brushed it off like a fly on his shoulder. Lance guessed he was used to this reaction. He walked over to where the five stood, enthusiastically shaking each of their hands. 

“Name’s Coran. I’m the chauffeur,” he said with a pleasant grin and a strange accent. He radiated warmth and familial familiarity - he was _not_ the kind of man Lance usually associated with being a revolutionary hacker.

Allura rolled her eyes, “Please. Coran’s the man who ensures my network’s loyalty, he keeps me updated on everything that goes on in the world, he’s my bodyguard, protector, and my oldest and closest friend.”

Coran cleared his throat.

“And _occasionally_ he drives me where I need to be.”

“That’s me. Just one step up from taxi driver.” Coran said. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be sitting in my car, waiting for anything and everything. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said with a mock bow. He exited the main room, retreated into a back hall, and Pidge made a face.

“Uh. Weird guy,” Pidge said, pointing her thumb behind her shoulder at the door Coran disappeared behind.

Allura smiled, “There isn’t anyone in the entire world I trust more than him.”

“You said there were three people on board. Where’s the third?” Pidge inquired.

For a second, something flashed in Allura’s eyes - fear, discomfort, hesitation - but as soon as it appeared, it was gone. “You’ll find out soon enough”. She rose from her chair and strode towards the giant screen with the map and little blinking blips confidence rushing through her veins and glittering stars in her eyes. “In the meantime, we have a world to change.”

. . .

Lance lightly tapped the tinted glass of the monstrous white van. Coran dubbed it “the Castle”, but it was more like a gallows. It smelled like mold and vegan leather.

“We would normally never assign more than two people to an operation,” Allura explained from besides Coran, “but we felt it was appropriate to bring everyone along. Show you the ropes.” She smiled slightly, then turned her gaze back to the windshield dotted with the reflections of the endless city before them.

They sat in silence after that, Coran and Allura at the front of the van and five behind them. Lance was stuck in the far back - squished in with Pidge and Keith. 

Lance felt like he was being carted to soccer practice. He quelled the urge to ask for a juice box and some Gushers. 

Instead, he wondered how they were going to change the world.

 _Weird_.

Coran drove like a madman. Fifty years (give or take a few, the youth of his face and aura contrasted with his withered and weary eyes and made for an inaccurate guess) of city living would do that to a man. Lance knew where he was driving, the map inside his head alerting him that there was a great dumpling shop two blocks south, a place to get cheap, shady spinal implants up the street, one of the few plant nurseries about a mile in the other direction. 

Navigating the maze of sheet metal and electrical wires was as natural to Lance as breathing oxygen.

Coran parked haphazardly, but with enough skill that even Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Where are we going?” Shiro asked tentatively. Lance noticed that he had hardly said a word - in protest or agreement. He just took the mantle of newborn-revolutionary in stride. Shiro knew his place in the world despite everything. Lance admired that like a streetsweeper admired Michelangelo. Looking, wanting, never touching and always out of reach. 

“I wanted to introduce you all to my network. They are my veins and eyes. Ears and fingertips. They tell me anything they see that could be of use to my… to _our_ cause. Without them, Lion’s Den would not exist,” Allura said, pressing buttons on the car dashboard. 

Lion’s Den existed, that was for sure, but Lance was unsure of whether or not they had actually _done_ anything. He had never heard of them, and Galtech was as healthy as ever. 

“What exactly have you guys actually done? I mean, sure. You talk the talk but do you… can you walk the walk?” Hunk asked, vocalizing Lance’s thought. Lance knew Hunk didn't want to be here. But he came, he was sitting right here with him - and Lance was eternally grateful. 

“Remember the bank attack six months ago? Machinery disabled, androids hacked. Banks debilitated. That was us. Remember the power outage last week, and the week before that, before that and that and that? Us. Entire android models hacked, infected with a deadly virus that rendered that make obsolete? That was us. All attacks aimed at defacing Galtech, wearing out their image and sanity one perceived mistake at a time.” Allura replied with hot intensity. 

“But you don't take any credit? No one has ever heard of the name ‘Lion’s Den’.”

“It's better that way. Safer. I don't have to be the hero. All I want is to see Galtech in shambles and the people free of shackles. I don’t care about applause. ” Allura exited the van, slim black turtleneck and trendy hairstyle disguising her as one of the millions that lived and breathed in the city. She gestured for the rest to follow and held her hand out as it started to rain, slender fingers feeling for droplets.

All of them exited the van and walked into the night - path dotted by light and the sounds of the city.

. . .

They continued along a skinny street stuffed to the brim with apartments and life. Allura led the way, confidence and knowledge her guardians. Shiro walked beside her, headstrong and quiet. Hunk nervously tapped his hands against his legs and worried about the future. Pidge planned her next move - impulse and caution at war behind her eyes. Lance wondered if he was ever going to get his stuff from his capsule and Keith thought of nothing.

Coran wondered if Allura was going to be okay.

“Where are you taking us?” Hunk thought aloud.

“To meet a friend. Her information will help us plan our next move,” Allura replied, her voice low, blending in with the city noise of steam and chatter. “This is the last time all of us will go out - together - like this. Seven people crowded together is too suspicious. We split into groups of twos.”

Hunk nodded in return. 

“She’ll meet us at the park just up the street.”

They walked in silence for a bit, the air heavy with tension and anticipation. The ‘park’ was less of a park and more of a triangular treelawn with a bench and a bush, the entire area surrounded by blinking neon and flickering ‘OPEN’ signs that couldn’t decide whether they were open or not. 

The real parks lay to the northernmost part of the city, mountains of redwoods clashing in battle with the ever-growing sprawl of high-rises competing for height.

A young girl who looked no older than sixteen sat on the bench, face washed in the glow of her cell phone. She was stockily built, with mousy brown hair and a kind face. She looked up and saw Allura coming, her eyes smiled but her mouth remained still.

“Shay,” Allura said as she hugged the child closely, Hunk was surprised by her tenderness. 

“These are your... friends?” Shay asked, her voice on the high end, yet soft and warm. 

“Associates,” Allura corrected as she took out a pad of paper and a pen. Hunk raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise - it had been a long time since he had seen someone willingly choose such an archaic method over the convenience of a smartphone. 

Allura noticed this and mumbled something about a ‘digital papertrail’ quietly, halfheartedly as she began to write the date at the top of the paper.

“So, Shay. I assume you have something important for me? The exchange shipment got Coran killed - the bulk alone practically broke his back,” Allura pressed, her tone playful without being accusatory. Somewhere in the background, Coran made an exasperated, exaggerated sound for effect. She and this girl must be close, Hunk wondered, examining their energy and analysing their warm, sisterly interactions.

“Yeah. It’s big. My brother overheard of a really big thing happening with Galtech execs - some sort of fancy party,” Shay’s voice ended in an upturn, the phrase sounding more like a question than anything, “the first they’ve had in years. It’s in exactly seven days from now. They’ve gotta be celebrating something important, but of course, the public’ll never know.” 

Allura nodded attentively, scribbling notes with her slender right hand. 

“But, Allura. Listen, this is the perfect opportunity for the biggest operation you’ve ever seen. If you could get invitations to that party, you could not only find out what’s their big celebration about, but you could really _see_ the front lines of Galtech, pick the minds of its most trusted members, and _feel_ how the whole thing works. Allura, this is your chance to get closer to their… heart… than ever before.” Shay’s voice was breathless, almost pleading. Her entire body tremored with emotion. Hunk wondered what had happened to her to make her so desperate.

He wondered how many others like her were out there, children who were driven to revolution because their ‘democracy’, their government, didn’t see them as people.

“This… isn’t going to be easy,” Allura hesitated, insecurity and fear flashed like lightning across her features, “but we have to do this. We’re ready - thanks to all of you,” she turned, returning to her cool, confident demeanor of a leader, proud and true, “I couldn’t have done this yesterday. But thanks to all of you for… trusting in our uncertainty, we have the numbers to do this. Each one of you were absolutely instrumental in bringing all of you - all of us - together.”

Allura sighed, contentment and determination exhaled from her lungs. 

“I know we can do this. Shay, can you get me an invitation to this party?”

Shay nodded slowly, “It’ll be hard… but I know this is important. I’ll get you those invitations as soon as I can.”

“Good. We only need two - a pair of operatives is our safest bet for success. Who it’ll be,” her eyes scanned the six before her, “is to be determined.” 

Shay gave Allura a parting hug, then flashed a ‘thumbs up’ towards the rest of the group. Allura smiled back, and the young revolutionary disappeared among the streets of the city.

“For the next seven days, we’ll focus on preparation. I know you five are… new at this, but there’s a reason you’re here and not back at the Garrison,” Allura continued.

Lance and Hunk looked at one another, their gaze uncomfortable and unsure. 

“You know you can never go back, right?” Allura questioned, her brow firm. “I’m not even sure you can even go back to your apartment,” she said, looking at Keith and Shiro.

“It’s secure,” Keith said flatly, crossing his arms, “it’s safe there.”

“Your home is the Lion’s Den now. This,” she gestured towards the city, towards Galtech HQ, “is your life now. The only family you know are standing right here at this very moment. Change is… powerful, rebellious, beautiful,” Allura said with starry eyes.

“See you at home.”

Allura and Coran walked off together into the night, leaving behind static air, neon glow, the taste of home. It smelled like electricity.

. . .

“She just… left,” Lance said, obviously, and Pidge muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “captain obvious”. Keith just shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Shiro and I are going to go get some stuff from the apartment. See you later.”

“It’s probably a good idea for the rest of you to get some basic supplies. This is going to be a long haul,” Shiro looked down, ever concerned, “maybe even a lifelong one.” 

Hunk nodded in agreement, “We’ll see you back at the… place. Den? Bunker? What are we even supposed to call it?”

“Home,” Shiro said. He and his brother headed off towards their apartment, their safe, private space. Hunk felt envious that they still had one amidst this insanity. 

“Blunt one, isn’t he?” Lance said nonchalantly as the three began walking in the direction of a convenience store. He took the lead, his muscle memory instinctively directing him towards their destination. He knew every convenience store in this part of the city, every differing price for rainbow sour worms, every cashier at every register. Some were androids, and he tended to avoid those.

“Shiro? He seems confident. Kind. Straight-forward, but not blunt,” Hunk mused.

Lance shook his head, “No. The other one. Black hair. Short. Knife-stranger.” Lance didn’t know why he pretended not to know Keith’s name, especially since he had memorized it the second he heard it. Keith wasn’t even that short, either, about 5’8”. 

Still, shorter than Lance.

“Oh, Keith. Yeah, he’s… strange. There’s something not quite ri- ” 

“I trust him. He’s the only one that knows what I’ve been going through,” Pidge interrupted, her underlying intensity once again making an appearance.

“Okay, I get that. But still, you can never be too cautious,” Hunk warned.

“Wait, what's wrong about him?” Lance inquired as he instructed the two to take a left. 

“I don't know, man, but someone must have it out for that guy _bad_. I mean really - it takes a serious vendetta to track and harass a man for his entire life. He must have some heavy baggage or crazy enemies. Something’s up there… and I have a feeling someone's gonna get hurt.”

Lance snorted, “Sure, getting hurt is the _least_ of our worries. We just threw our lives away, man. Gotta learn to take some risks.”

“Lance, this entire night has been one big risk,” Hunk shot back, voice flat, but empty of bite. 

Suddenly, the three found themselves face-to-face with a convenience store comprised almost entirely of neon ‘OPEN’ signs. They entered, greeted by the familiar smell of lemon-scented cleaning fluid and stale candy. Aisles of cheap-o tech, linoleum-wrapped food, sugary drinks, stretched out like a sea before their eyes. Neon signs and blinking lights directed them to their destinations - no location left to uncertainty. Unlike the city, the lights were not low and dim; instead, fluorescence burned its way into the soul.

A young man diligently swept the floors and a woman with dark skin and orange hair blew gum-bubbles behind the counter.

“So, we need toothpaste, toothbrushes… cheap blankets, maybe… what else?” Hunk scratched his head as he thought. Pidge migrated over to the portable electronics and Lance was gravitationally locked to the candy aisle. Hunk sighed, alone in his duty, and reluctantly took on the role of requisitions officer… and shepherd. 

Despite technology evolving to the point of artificial life, grimy convenience stores were ingrained in city DNA. They would always exist, they would always offer low prices and poor quality, they were all the same - as reliable as an old, old friend. 

Lance wondered what kind of candy his newfound friends would like. He knew Hunk liked chocolate-covered raisins - the _snob_ \- and, guessing by the empty packets that littered the side pockets of her messenger bag, he figured Pidge lived and breathed Fun Dip. Shiro didn't seem like one for candy, so Lance opted for almonds instead. _They probably make you regular… or something_ , Lance mused- somehow coming to the conclusion that Shiro would approve of his choice. Lance didn't know Allura and Coran at all, so he went the safe route with jelly beans. But Keith… he was different. Lance imagined that Keith would be a dark chocolate type of guy - rich, astringent, alluring. Bitter with just enough sweetness to keep you coming back for more. 

_But fuck Keith_ , Lance thought, and reached for the rainbow Nerds. 

Hunk appeared seconds later, arms full of vitals and necessities. “Allura’s gotta have shampoo, right? Her hair can't be _that_ perfect without shampoo and conditioner, but I got these tabs just in case…” Humk rambled as he and Lance strode over to Pidge. 

She was looking at a portable drone that fit into the palm of her (small) hand with an incredulous look on her face. “You sure these are legal?” she asked to the assistant sweeping the floors. The light purple shimmer to his complexion, like an omnipresent violet light three feet away was constantly washing over his skin, signified his status as an artificial being. “Pssht, _no_ ,” the android chuckled, “but since when has that stopped anybody?” 

Lance had to stifle an audible reaction. He hadn’t realized the man was a machine. They were too realistic, the definition of uncanny valley, endlessly unnerving. 

Lance was human not because he looked human. He took solace in his humanity. It was important to him, being human, and knowing that everything he witnessed was a product of his _existence as a human being_. It was his memories, family, history made him what he was. 

And that was what was so wrong about the machines that dared to call themselves human - when they had _none_ of what made a being truly alive.

He said nothing, just stared ahead blankly as the android laughed and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone,” to Pidge. She smiled and winked in return, carrying the drone to the counter. The three dumped their haul on the checkout counter, and the orange-haired woman scanned the items with her watch. Lance noticed the absence of purple in her skin - human. He received the notification for the receipt on his watch, and the woman went back to chewing. They exited the store, loot in hand, and began their way towards their new home.

“How can you talk so normally to them, Pidge?” Lance asked as he opened a pack of sour gummy worms.

“Who?” Pidge inquired. The smug smile on her face signified she was pleased with her purchase, which she fiddled with absentmindedly.

“Bots. Why do stores even hire them, anyway? Yeesh,” he shuddered, “give me the creeps.”

“Sure, they’re all Galtech. Whom I hate,” she added obviously, “But… they’re still life. Just like we are. And androids are like, a whole nother level of mystery - I love trying to figure out how they think.” Pidge shrugged, “Metal or bone, we all come from Earth. They’re made from carbon-fibre, we’re made of carbon. That’s too small of a distinction for me to care. So I just… don’t think about it?” She shrugged, and went back to her drone.

Hunk nodded in agreement. To him, androids were machines. Simple as that. Hunk knew machines, he knew people, and he knew both needed the same basic things: care, warmth, someone to look after them. Machines and humans were different by nature, always will be. But not so different in need - and Hunk knew which one he paid more attention too.

“Yeah, but they’re so… _fake_. They’re not human, but they’re designed to be. Isn’t that wrong to you guys?”

The two just shrugged, and Pidge said, “I think I’m gonna name him Rover. Ready to go to Mars?”, effectively ending the conversation. The three continued in silence, the sounds of the city always in the background.

. . .

It was almost three in the morning when they returned to the Lion’s Den. It was strange - the entire place had an ominous, dark aura to it - but thanks to the restaurant above, it consistently smelled like noodles and frying meat.The juxtaposition was laughable.

Keith and Shiro were already there, the two brothers chatting to each other about something. Allura and Coran were nowhere to be seen - they probably disappeared into the nebulous hallways and side rooms.

“How’d you get here so fast?” Lance asked, throwing his body into one of the egg chairs. Then, sighing heavily, immediately got back up to distribute the candy. A quiet, intense look entered Pidge’s eyes when she saw the Fun Dip, and Lance felt a shiver run up his spine. Hunk thanked Lance, walking off towards the flickering ‘stolen’-ified monitors. Shiro looked at the almonds with a raised eyebrow, and Keith tore off one side of the small cardboard box with his teeth - and proceeded to inhale the candy inside.

Lance blinked in surprise. The kid liked rainbow Nerds. A lot, it seemed.

“Keith’s bike,” Shiro answered, pushing the almonds away from him. “We’re probably not going to abandon the apartment, but something tells me we won’t be going back for a while.”

Lance nodded and felt the awkwardness settle beside him. They were supposed to be friends now. Teammates at the very least, family at most. But here they were, standing in silence with what felt like a mile-long gap between them and the rest of the world.

“We still don’t know anything about this message, aside from its purpose as a warning… a haunting… about Shiro,” Hunk’s voice broke the quiet. He was hunched over the computer screens, the words dancing and reflecting in his eyes. 

“It bears remarkable similarities to Galtech signatures,” Pidge commented, her lips stained blue, “but it’s not exact. It’s weird that it’s still appearing after Shiro was found, though. Maybe instead of a warning to Keith, it was… like a personal plea by Galtech? Like a ‘lost dog’ sign, or something.” She paused, her hand on her chin. “But, no, that wouldn’t make sense with the timeline, if Keith’s been getting this message his entire life…”

“I’m glad you mentioned that,” Allura said, her silhouette outlined by the pink hue of the room behind her, Coran at her side. “Because we don’t think the signal is about Shiro at all.”

Both Shiro and Keith perked up in surprise. Confusion was written plainly across Shiro’s scarred features, and Keith was as unreadable as always. “I’ve been getting this message my entire life,” Keith began, his voice low and deadly, “and I finally figured out what it meant. But now you’re saying that it’s not true. You’re saying that I’m just as blind as I was before.” The statement was almost a threat.

“Would you rather live with false satisfaction or the painful truth?” Allura calmly retorted. “I don’t think there’s a simple explanation for this message. And it’s still being broadcasted to anyone with sensitive enough tech to detect it.” She chewed on her lip slightly, hands folded behind her back. 

Hunk and Pidge briefly confirmed, sweat beading at Hunk’s brow. Nothing’s ever easy.

“That’s our top priority at the gala next week. We need an inside eye to find out what was stolen from Galtech.” Allura continued. She paused again, the same flash of hesitation and fear in her eyes. “But I’m afraid I know that it’s not that simple.” 

“What do you mean?” Pidge pressed.

“Follow me,” Allura said softly, still biting her lip. They complied, and followed the white-haired woman into the soft pink air of the side rooms. 

The room smelled like motor oil and rubbing alcohol. Beeping screens, and walls back-lit with fuschia clashed with the absolute mess of thick, ribbed cords and thin colorful wires that stretched like veins. Lance followed them with his eyes, nervous to find their source. 

His heart dropped to his knees when he saw what lay on the cold metal table at the center of the room.

An android, deactivated, skin torn to reveal the mechanical truth underneath, slept dormant - tubes and wires protruding from it like a pincushion. Half of the skin on its face was removed, white carbon-fibre exoskeleton exposed. Underneath the white material that made up the android’s bone structure, black rubber-muscle and manufactured eyeballs twitched slightly. Tubes that acted as arteries carrying oil-black blood ran down the machine’s neck, disappearing underneath the exoskeleton. Grey muscle the color of off-meat was visible in its shoulders and forearms, streaked with red and blue wire-veins.

It looked like a human cadaver - instinctively recognizable, yet twisted and perverted to the point of revulsion. 

Lance tasted bile in the back of his throat. Shiro’s shoulders tremored slightly - he gripped his mechanical arm with the force of a thousand suns. Hunk’s hand covered his mouth. Keith stood still and silent - unreadable. Pidge moved towards the machine, the pink sheen of the room reflecting on her glasses.

“Where did you get him?” she asked - her voice quiet, punctured by the beeps of the machinery surrounding her.

“We stole him,” Allura said, emptily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, comment give me life and i'd love to hear any questions, comments, complaints, etc. thanks for reading!


	4. Bio-Tech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The interesting thing about about people is how different they can be if you look a few inches under the skin. How different their true selves are - essence and being - versus what they want you to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a lot with the tone of this chapter. While cyberpunk is normally gritty, stoic, _badass_ , I had to remind myself of why I liked Voltron in the first place: it portrayed kids struggling with the burden of heroism. So that’s kind of how I view this chapter: a reflection of how young, confused minds would react being thrown into the furnace of revolution. So while I strayed from the conventions of the genre, I hoped I stayed true to the source material. 
> 
> This chapter is also a lot more introspective. I' never been a fan of filler, but unfortunately, to establish character, filler is necessary. I sincerely hope this ‘filler’ provided useful insight into the inner workings of our protagonists.
> 
> I promise the plot will pick up next week. Thanks for sticking with me.
> 
> PS: This chapter is un-beta'd. If there are any mistakes or errors I would love to hear them, as well as any comments and criticisms :)
> 
> PSS: Reading back at this note, I just realized how ugly the word "un-beta'd" is. Sorry y'all have to read that.

CHAPTER FOUR: BIO-TECH

“A 53N-D4K model. Sendak, we’ve taken to calling him. Retired model, one of the higher ups in Galtech security. The manufacturers took the extra time to remove the violet sheen from printed skin, so if you saw him on the street you’d have no idea what he was. Well, not now, obviously, half his face is missing. But you get it - Galtech spent extra for this model. We’re honestly lucky we got him in such good condition. Well, he was in good condition before…” Coran rambled, lighthearted tone of voice standing stark against the gravity of the room.

“Is he… in pain?” Hunk asked, visibly uncomfortable.

“Oh, no. No, no, no; no pain at all. We removed his sensory processing chip and shut him down completely. Of course, when we want to observe conscious behavior, we plug everything back in, factory settings. That’s rare, however, most of the time he sleeps in a painless dormant state.”

“I don’t…” Lance stuttered, his mouth dry. He had never been this close to the inside of an android, and had never wanted to. “Why do you have it? Are you running… experiments, or-”

“Androids are the key to Galtech,” Allura responded in her headstrong voice, “they represent everything the company has ever achieved. Galtech alone knows the secret to artificial life, they guard it with… utmost intensity.” She looked down at the disemboweled machine before her. 

“They’re so human. Each have their own personalities, reactions, sub-consciousnesses. They truly are unique individuals - each and every one. It makes me sad,” her voice low, barely more than a whisper, eyes cast downwards, “to think they'll never know what it's like to be truly alive.”

Lance had no problem with sympathisers - androids and organic activists parading and petitioning for the discarded models rusting in the streets, over-worked factory builds whose fingers were rubbed raw until the metal underneath shone bright, high-grade sex models treated as objects without thought or personality. He didn't mind people who understood the plight of synthetic life. 

But _damn_ if it didn't feel good to find someone who agreed with him. 

“They’re alive, just in a different way than we are,” Pidge spoke up, voice calm, “But still; how did you get him? It couldn’t’ve been easy to steal such an advanced model, even for a covert organization.”

Allura turned to face them, pink pupils and mechanical irises stark in contrast to the dim room. “I told you Lion’s Den had three members,” she was visibly uncomfortable, unnaturally stiff, “The retrieval of the Sendak model was entirely his doing.”

“How-?” Hunk began, thought cut short by Allura’s accented alto.

“He is an artificial intelligence,” Allura confessed.

“I- _where_? I’ve only see one android here so far - and I thought you hated everything Galtech?” Pidge stuttered, rapid-fire thoughts darting like minnows in her mind.

“He’s… in here,” Allura shut her eyes, brow drawn tight, slender fingers pointed towards her temple, “in my head.” 

Silence reigned supreme throughout the room, seldom punctuated by the delicate beeping of the surrounding machinery.

“He has limited control of my physiology - body temperature, adrenal gland. His thoughts enhance my own, he allows me to observe things unaugmented humans couldn’t see. My senses are elevated, my reaction time is vastly improved. I’m still human, but my consciousness is melded with this… machine. To make me better. To help me fight Galtech.” Her ordinary confidence was mottled with hints of uncertainty, insecurity. It just occurred to Lance how young Allura looked, cheeks round and eyes wide with wonder. She couldn’t be older than twenty five and here she was - commander and leader, a force for change. 

“That’s - are you _crazy_?! Control over your body, connected to your thoughts? Have you ever read any science-fiction _ever_? How can you trust this - alien - machine with your body, of all things?” Hunk stammered. 

Lance took a step back from the white-haired woman before him.

Pidge moved forward, intrigue and curiosity biting at her insides

Shiro looked distracted, staring at the disemboweled android with absent eyes and a pale face. Keith kept his eye on Shiro with intensity, seemingly unbothered by Allura’s confession. Coran emulated sympathy, obviously privy to this detail.

“I trust him because he is my father.” Allura continued, regaining her steadfast composure. 

_When a mommy A.I. and a daddy A.I love each other very much_ …, Lance thought, impulsively.

“Wait a sec, I thought your dad was stolen - like Shiro and my brother were stolen.” Pidge pressed.

“He was.”

“Then _how_ -”

“This is all I have left of him. The A.I. was constructed using the remnants of his consciousness. But he is my father, true and true. And he would never hurt me.” Allura’s expression was wistful, her eyes misty and her smile slight. 

“To my knowledge, this kind of human-A.I connection has never, ever been attempted before. It’s incredibly dangerous, not to mention risky - which is the understatement of the _century_.” Pidge scratched her head, radiating excitement. 

“You are correct. I'm unsure if this integration would've worked on anyone else. I trusted my father completely in life, and now I trust the remains of his thoughts as if my life depended on it. Which it does,” Allura added, macabre dusting her voice. 

“So that's how you could pull off those operations with two physical people. You had a hyper-intelligent A.I. helping you.” Hunk stated, a bit afraid. 

Allura nodded, “Yes. And my father and I have compiled data that-” the sound of falling, boots scuffling floors, and Keith’s cry of “ _Shiro_!” erupted between her words. 

“I don't… I don't feel so well,” Shiro gasped, his skin ghostly pale, glistening with sickly sweat, hunched over on the floor 

“I’m gonna take him… to breathe, or sit down or _something_ ,” Keith muttered, hoisting Shiro up, acting like a crutch. Keith hurried out the room, pulse racing.

. . .

They reached the vast room lined with computer screens and Keith set Shiro down in one of the hanging chairs. He reached into his pocket and proceeded to grind up another pill, fracturing the chalk-like powder into tiny pieces and pushing them between his brother’s pale lips.

“Breathe. You're okay, Shiro. You're with me. It's alright,” Keith tried his best to sound soothing, but his own emotion and worry tainted his voice, making his words of comfort sound more like a command. 

“I'm okay. Had a bit of a… long day,” Shiro panted. 

“Looking at that machine… I remembered. Sometimes we’d see bone and red muscle, on display, for all of us to see. Other times it'd be those wires and grey tissue and that… blinding white exoskeleton. I remember needles. So many needles, Keith. They'd always want to know us. Everything about us - how we were feeling, our strength, our blood. They knew more about me than I did. I can't… I remember too much. It's there even when I close my eyes, Keith.” Shiro stammered, his eyes wide open and vacant, his mechanical arm twitching. 

“I don't remember how I got this arm. Or why. I don't really like it.”

Keith just nodded, whispering, pleading, “It's going to be okay. You're not there anymore - this is now and you're with me. It's okay, Shiro.”

Shiro swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, eyes closed, “Yeah, you're right. I just need some sleep. I'll be okay. I promise.” 

In the six years Keith had known his brother, he had never faltered. Shiro was always strong, calm, constant. Quiet intelligence and omnipresent understanding permeated his being - his aura. Shiro was a rock in the tide - he never backed away from a threat, he would do anything to maintain honor and order and reality. Shiro was always present. 

Keith didn't recognize the ghostly stranger in front of him with stuttering words and a scarred face. Now he knew that he had to be present, when Shiro couldn’t.

“Go to sleep, okay? I’ll be… right here. I’m not gonna leave,” Keith whispered. Shiro nodded with a shuddering sigh and tried his hardest to relax. Keith awkwardly tried to maneuver himself into the egg chair, squeezing himself into the jigsaw puzzle next to his brother with great difficulty. Shiro laughed lightly, Keith flicked him and muttered, “Shut up,” - lacking in any conviction. He was happy his brother laughed. 

Keith listened to the sound of his Shiro breathing, his shoulders heaving in monumental attempts to calm down and rest. He wondered why Shiro was stolen after all - what had he done to deserve this? He wondered what Shiro had endured, tried to discern a method behind the apparent madness.

He wondered why he got him back. 

Keith didn’t often think about the meaning behind things - they were there, and that’s all there was to them. If something felt wrong, he would investigate with utmost scrutiny, but that feeling actually had to exist first.

But now, as he lay listening to the breath of the man he once thought gone forever, felt his form beneath his cheek, knew that he was alive, Keith couldn’t help but wonder the reason for it all. 

He slowly and steadily drifted to sleep - beneath the watchful eye of the stolen monitors, nestled under the arm of his stolen brother.

. . .

Lance felt uncomfortable.

Understatement. 

There were two artificial intelligences in this room, one skinned alive, deactivated and the other thriving within the skull of the woman who was now his leader. He knew this was where he wanted to be, he savored the sweet taste of chance and hope, but he felt at odds with the idea that his leader against the pervertor of life was part-A.I. 

He didn’t know part-A.I. was a even a _thing_ until now. 

Lance trusted people - he _knew_ people; he didn’t know artifical intelligences so he didn’t _trust_ them. But when they mixed - which he never expected to happen in the first place - he didn’t know how to feel. His entire moral axis was set in limbo. 

“Are Keith and Shiro coming back? I still have more to show you all,” Allura said lightly, pleasantly. Too normally. “But I understand it’s been… a long day. Coran will show you the sleeping arrangements,” she nodded.

“I still have so many questions to ask you!” Pidge protested, reaching out to grab Allura’s sleeve like a child. Allura smiled, as she, Lance garnered, often did. 

“Your enthusiasm is…encouraging, to say the least,” she said with a small chuckle. The smile faded from her face as she looked towards the empty face of the android, her intense blue eyes staring with mechanical precision. “For the longest time I thought Coran and I were alone. That I was alone. Then we re-made my father, and I learned what it was like to have two minds in the same head. But it was still, physically, only Coran and I,” Allura’s voice cracked slightly, real and human and vulnerable washed in the pink glow of the small room, “You have… no idea how many times I thought about giving up, jumping out of a building; ending this… this charade. I didn’t, endless thanks to Coran and my father. But the thought was always there - that I was alone. Playing some make-believe game like a delusional child.”

She looked up, tears brimming in her bright eyes, shining magenta under the watchful glow of the lights.

“But now you’re here, all of you. And I’m not alone anymore. To know that Coran and I aren’t the only ones in the entire world… playing this game - you can’t possibly imagine how that feels. We’re moving closer to what is real, what _can_ be real.”

“Of course you’re not alone,” Hunk muttered - a small but meaningful attempt to comfort the teary-eyed woman before them. 

“Thank you.” Allura laughed, wiping her eyes. “You’re all probably exhausted. I’ll stop my blubbering and let you all rest.” She opened the door, the air from the hallway clashing with the scent of stagnant oil and rubber. 

“It’s just down that hallway, to the right. Coran will help you with bedding and provisions and the like,” She glanced towards Coran, who nodded in return, raising his hand to his brow in a false, militaristic gesture. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, stiffly but not unkindly, a slight smile on her lips and the reflection of lights in her bluest eyes. She walked down the hall to the left and disappeared into another room, the sound of the door sliding and clicking behind her echoed throughout the room. 

“This way, kiddos,” Coran announced, taking the lead down towards the corridor before them. Lance stared at the man, mildly offended. He mouthed the word ‘kiddos’ towards Hunk and Pidge, who laughed at his indignation. “How old are you all anyway?” Coran inquired, oblivious.

“Twenty-one and change. Drinkin’ age,” Lance smirked.

“I’m twenty-three,” Hunk replied.

“Nineteen. _Shut up_ ,” Pidge snapped at Lance, the words ‘baby’ forming on his lips with a mocking grin.

“So young,” Coran remarked with uncharacteristic sadness, “Allura was fifteen when Alfor died. Twenty when the integration happened. She’s twenty-six now. Her entire adult life has been dedicated towards the cause. She grew up too fast. I always hated how young she was. And now I’ll have to hate how young all of you are, too.”

“We chose this. It’s a little different,” Pidge offered, and Hunk looked gravely uncomfortable. 

Coran sighed, “I know, I know. And besides, I love meeting new people. It’ll be _quite_ fun getting to know you all,” he looked at them, a slight, lopsided grin gracing his features, emphasizing his laugh lines. 

“Okay, here’s what you need to know - the run-down: Pidge is short and smart and a little scary, if I’m being honest, Hunk is like, worry personified. Keith is messy and weird - we just met, so I can’t give you too much dirt, ya feel?And I know Shiro’s seen some _shit_ , but I don’t really know and I don’t really wanna know. And _I’m_ Lance,” he held out his hand, “I love introductions.” 

“Just Lance?” Coran asked with a grin.

“Yeah, just Lance.”

Coran laughed and shook Lance’s hand, the warm dryness of his palm pleasant to the touch. “Pleasure doing business with you, _Just Lance_ ” Coran cajoled, raising one ginger eyebrow with studied mastery. 

Lance laughed pleasantly in response as Coran opened a white door to a near-empty room with white walls glowing with fuschia - backlit behind the corners and intersections. Five small inflatable mattresses sat rolled up, in the center of the room. Thin folded blankets made out of strange, silvery material stiff to the touch rested adjacent. What Lance assumed were inflatable pillows lay on top of the mattresses. 

He glanced at the linoleum tile floors - squares empty and smooth, and cold. He wondered how he was supposed to feel at home without a proper bed.

“It's not much,” Coran began, almost sheepishly, “but trust me, those mattresses are more cushion-y than they look. And it’s probably temporary - we’ll try and get some capsules set up in a jiffy.”

He turned and faced the three, gravity returning to his eyes. “I hope you’ll be with us a long time. I know this transition is hard - almost impossible to the ordinary person. But you’re here, and I want this to be as comfortable as possible.” Coran smiled, pleasant aura once again surrounding his being. “Let me know if you need anything! See you in the morning,” he glanced at his watch, “Oh! 3:56 A.M. It is morning. Well then, see you when you’re awake.” He exited the room, muttering under his breath, “I suppose they’re all awake now…”

The three said nothing for a few heartbeats, instead stewing in the improbability and unpredictability of their circumstances. None of them expected this, one of them wanted this, and the other two accepted this - with a heavy heart and a clouded conscience. Respectively.

“Well, I sure as shit am not gonna sleep, so… anyone wanna talk about their feelings?” Pidge’s mellow voice - the color of caramel - broke the silence. She unrolled one of the mattresses and pressed a button to inflate it, watching absentmindedly as the fabric instantly expanded.

“I am honestly still in shock. I have no idea what in the _hell_ just happened,” Hunk responded, following suit, assembling his mattress. 

“From the top: we were gonna go for a walk, but ran into an angry gnome with a laptop and a weird word. We found a man who got beat up by the government, I got punched in the stomach, and we went to a weird-o apartment owned by an even… more weird-o dude. Then we followed some coordinates, met a chick and a dude with a fugly stache, joined a revolution, walked to a park, walked back, saw a robot, and now we’re here,” Lance summarized, a-mile-a-minute (as he was prone to), tapping his temple in mockery, “Keep up, amateur.”

Hunk made a face. “Ouch; amateur. What a zinger.”

“Yeah, man. You’re never gonna recover from that one,” Lance retorted, slipping back into the familiar rhythm of friendship and intimacy he shared with Hunk - a relationship mottled with teasing and sarcasm. He reclined on his new bed, surprised by its coziness.

Pidge turned off the lights with her watch, darkness rushing into the small room. “God, where are we even going? What’s the future gonna be like?” she admitted like a prayer, the first inklings of insecurity and doubt entering her mind. She was so sure that this is where she was meant to be, but now that she was here, she had no idea what to do next.

“I don’t know, man,” Hunk’s voice wavered, “and that scares me.”

“Does it matter, though?” Lance thought out loud, too tired to care about rambling or coherency, thoughts fraying with sleeplessness and the whispers of adrenaline. “I mean, really. We’re here. We can’t change that now,” he chuckled slightly, laughing at nothing but circumstance.

“Yeah. You’re right,” Pidge mused, tone thoughtful - as always. “We just have to make sure we make a difference in this goddamn world - and _I_ have to make sure to find my brother. All that middle stuff is just empty static, anyways.” She knew she wanted change and revolt, but only halfways. She had to remind herself that her brother was her ultimate end goal - she was going to find him by any means necessary, even if that meant abandoning her newfound friend-family. 

Lance hummed in affirmation, settling into silence.

Hunk stared, eyes wide open, not sure if he ever wanted to make a difference in the world. He just existed - he lived his own private life in his own sphere of influence, and that was it. That was enough for him. 

His heart hammered in his chest at the thought of revolution - and his own doubt frightened him more than the gunshots and lawlessness of his eventual future.

“Goodnight,” Pidge said, nonchalantly, voice even as she knew she was content with her place in the world. Her brain hummed with ideas and she enjoyed the lull of possibility and life as she stared at the unblemished white ceiling, dark gray in the darkness. 

“Goodnight,” Hunk whispered back. He knew this was going to be a sleepless night.

“‘Night,” Lance muttered, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” He normally struggled to fall asleep, mind racing and heart wanting, but under the soft pink glow, comforted by the promise of change and excitement of adventure, he slowly slipped into unconsciousness. 

Lance dreamt of a dark-haired stranger with a knife like a flame and tasted his hot voice on his tongue, tinged with revolution and oil-black bitterness.

. . .

> “Friends are the family you choose.”  
>  ― Jess C. Scott

. . .

Shiro woke to a pounding heart and sweaty palms. Sleeping was never a good idea, because their strange obsession with consciousness reared its ugly head when their subjects - lab rats, data-mines, problems to be solved - fell asleep. Sleeping meant they could whatever they wished without any chance of protest - and once the unfortunate soul blinked off sleep, invasively bright lights a grotesque alarm clock - it was too late. They were in total control.

Thus, Shiro never slept; he learned to catch rest in a few seconds every day, when they were preoccupied with one of the many - stolen from their own lives.

When Shiro felt the stifling touch of deep sleep against his muscles and the waking soreness of his eyes, he panicked. He had made a mistake, they were going to break him, use him, and it was _his_ fault for falling asleep, the fluorescent lights slowly, steadily wearing down his soul until he was nothing - and _fuck_ , they were fucking close. 

But the lights weren’t there, the room was dark and cool and quiet, and the familiar bedhead of his little brother nestled against his left arm.

The events of the last day came crashing down on Shiro like the weight of the world. He was free - and not only that, he was with others dedicated to destroying those who defiled his body and scrambled his mind.

He remembered the grey muscle of the android, the exoskeleton as white as bone, he remembered seeing tube-intestines mixed with real, pink flesh and blood on the pure-white tiles of his prison. 

He remembered Keith’s eyes - so black they were almost purple - glinting with raw emotion and pain. He hadn’t seen those eyes for an entire year.

Shiro pushed back the thoughts of pain and oil-black and focused on the midnight eyes of his little brother. He wasn’t taking the position of leader for himself - if it was up to Shiro, he would remain in the shadows, where he could face his demons and memories in the dark. But he couldn’t afford that, he couldn’t afford to disappear, so he would do everything he could to be as present as possible. Just like he did in the past, when Keith’s dad dumped a rain-soaked teenager, eyes red with teardrops, on the doorstep of Shiro’s father. Just like when Shiro’s dad died slowly - poison in his bones and blood - and left the two brothers lost and alone. 

Shiro stared at the sleeping, expressionless face of his little brother, mouth slightly parted, the usual tension between his brows absent in unconsciousness. Shiro cocked his head, studying Keith’s heart-shaped face and the slightly pointed tip of his small nose. He was fourteen when they first met, and Shiro noted that Keith’s face hadn’t changed much since the day he moved in six years ago. His hair hadn’t changed either, always thick and uncomfortably long, curling outwards at the nape of his neck. Shiro brushed it off, attributing it to the fantastic genetics and smooth skin of his father. 

Keith shifted, ever the light sleeper, uncomfortable under the gaze of his older brother’s dark eyes. He blinked, short, thick lashes fluttering slightly. 

“Shiro? You’re up already? Are you okay?” Keith muttered, voice hoarse from sleep, violet-black eyes dreary with dreams.

Shiro smiled, “Yeah, I’m okay.” He groaned, stretching his arms high, trying to ignore how natural his right arm felt. “Wouldn’t recommend sleeping in an egg chair, though.”

Keith slowly exited the chair - then stopped, suddenly, when something popped deep in his knee. “I definitely agree with you,” he said with an exhale, once he had successfully unstuck himself from the wicker frame of the egg chair. 

“Like sardines in a can,” Shiro commented, chuckling slightly.

“Don’t talk about food. I can’t remember the last time I ate something of substance.”

Shiro glanced around the room, half of his body outside the hanging egg chair, toes lightly grazing the ground. “This place is an underground bunker. It’s common sense to have a food stockpile. I’m sure I could find something to whip up,” he said optimistically.

Keith made a face. Shiro feigned indignation, but Keith had a point. He could burn water. 

Keith ruffled the white-salted tips of Shiro’s hair. “Your hair matches your name now,” he murmured.

Shiro groaned. “I hate it. I look like I’m forty.”

“That’s only a decade away.”

“It’s _thirteen years_!”

“How did it happen?”

“What, the white? I dunno - stress, probably. Like Marie Antoinette.” Shiro huffed, staring upwards at the silvery ends of his once tar-black hair.

“Oh.”

“Speaking of which, how did you survive while I was… away?” Shiro asked, a little too casually. 

Keith began slowly, “It was… hard. I mean, my dad was gone a lot before I moved in, like I’ve told you. You know I’m used to the independence. But this was different. I always knew where my dad was when he left. But I didn’t know anything about you. I didn’t even know if you were alive,” he stared directly at Shiro, never afraid of eye contact, dark eye to dark eye, “Not knowing was the worst part.”

“I’m sorry, Keith, I tried so hard to find a way to let you kn-”

“Don’t apologize, Shiro. You did nothing wrong. I wasn’t fast enough finding you before… -” he glanced down towards Shiro’s arm.

“Now I’m going to tell _you_ not to apologize,” Shiro smiled slightly, “it’s okay. We’re both here now - that’s that. The past is… well, the past. Let’s focus on now and the future, alright?”

Keith nodded in response.

“Great. The present says ‘I’m hungry’. So let’s go find some food okay?”

Keith nodded again. The aura of the room mimicked so many conversations he and Shiro had in the past, when they were still struggling to live by themselves. 

The familiarity was both comforting and alienating - a reminder of how different things were then.

The two walked out of the large room, computer screens still flickering with stolen letters, indistinguishable between night and day without any windows to tell the difference. They headed towards the central hallway that acted like an artery for the bunker, side rooms jutting out like capillaries. 

“Are we just going to look around for a kitchen, or vending machine or something? ‘Cause we don’t know where anything is,” Keith stated, bluntly. 

“Yes, Keith, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” Shiro replied with ease, used to this line of questioning. 

“Okay.”

“Okay.” 

Shiro paused, standing at the crossroads between the room and the hallway. “Right or le-”

Lance and Pidge came barreling through the corridor, laughter in their breath and haste in their heels.

“Oh, hey guys! Come on, we’re just exploring,” Pidge gasped, grinning. “It’s huge.”

“It’s _awesome_ ,” Lance waved his hands excitedly. “I mean, I always thought secrets and hackers and, ya know, _revolution_ , would be cool, but I didn’t know it would be A.I.-that-literally-wipes-your-ass cool.”

He chuckled at Shiro’s expression, a mixture of curiosity, disbelief, and disgust.

Lance sighed, dramatically. “Lemme show you what I mean.” He clapped his hands towards the ceiling. “Excuse me, Mr. A.I.,” he said in a horrible mockery of a British accent, “when is my birthday?”

A cool, accented voice emanated from the walls, “Your birthday is July 28th, 2028. Your favorite color is red, according to numerous historical web queries and social media posts. Your name is Lance, and you have asked me that question five times in the last sixty minutes.”

“So. Cool.” Lance exclaimed, punctuating each word with his hands. “ _So cool_.”

“And I thought he didn’t like A.I.” Pidge huffed.

Lance made a face. “I don’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t think the tech is awesome.”

Shiro stared at the ceiling, posture tense and defensive. Keith looked up as well, a glimmer of curiosity in his dark eyes.

“Are you Allura’s father? I thought you were confined to her head?” Shiro asked, calm despite the stress indicated by his body language.

“Yes. My name is Alfor. My full capabilities and personality are only available to my daughter alone, but I exist here as a form of hyper-intelligent virtual assistant. I can aid in basic tasks and queries, and am given remote control over the bunker’s functions. I can help you with whatever you need, whatever you ask - within my limits, of course. Good day.”

Shiro stared at the ceiling for a few more beats, and Keith returned his gaze to Lance, who was talking excitedly to Pidge.

“What else did you find?” Shiro began after a while.

“Bedrooms, bathrooms. Heated toilet seats. A lot of computers, android parts, a defunct fridge,” Lance listed, counting off the items on his fingers.

“Where’s Hunk?” Keith inquired, quietly.

“Hmm? Oh, he’s with Allura and Coran. They’re getting food, I think. They should be back soon. There’s no fridge here!” Lance responded, voice tinged with childlike haste, excitement. Like a kid on Christmas morning, endlessly eager to see what lies in wait. 

“Can you believe it? All this tech, all these gadgets, and no freakin’ fridge?” Lance scoffed, clearly offended.

Pidge snickered at his melodrama, only to be interrupted by the sound of footsteps treading down the other hall.

“Good morning, everyone! I see you’ve survived your first night all in one piece,” Coran’s cheerful voice echoed throughout the room.

The four turned around, greeted by the sight of Hunk, Allura, and Coran carrying white boxes. Hunk was visibly distraught, and Lance assumed it was from the lifting.

Pidge poked curiously at the boxes, pushing the tab to collapse the sides, revealing collection of small, rectangular pouches filled with muddy liquid. “What is _this_ -” she began.

“I tried to stop them, I really did. Pidge, my soul’s been on fire this entire morning. I nearly had a breakdown in the store - tears and everything ,” Hunk lamented, clasping his hands like a beggar.

“Nutritional, sustainable, liquid diet! A year’s worth for five people.” Coran smirked, clearly enamored with the pouch he cradled lovingly in his arms.

“So wrong,” Hunk sobbed, “so, so, so wrong.”

“Drink up!” Coran smarted, tossing pouches towards each of the five and Allura. Pidge and Shiro regarded the liquid with distrust at worst, curiosity at best. Lance ripped off the top of the pouch and eagerly began downing the drink. Keith looked at Lance, shrugged, and followed suit. Hunk looked at the pouch like it was the dismembered head of his firstborn child.

“Now that that’s settled,” Allura led, “I feel as if we have some important business to discuss.” Allura always spoke like she expected her audience to burst into violence, lawlessness at any moment - and politeness and poise kept them at bay.

“That’s for sure,” Shiro sighed, running his human hand through his silver hair. “What are doing?”

Allura scanned the five with her engineered eyes, purest blue. “I don’t doubt each and every one of you is a uniquely talented individual. So it’s our job to figure out what those talents are best suited to. And what job is the least likely to result in failure.”

“Pidge and Hunk,” she kept her hands clasped behind her back, “are extraordinary engineers. I can’t afford to put you in the field. You belong here, using your talents to extrapolate data and work revolution through screen and machine.” Allura smirked, proud of her rhyme.

“Keith and Shiro excel at hand-to-hand combat. I would prefer to have you complete missions physically, plant seeds, threaten, fight. You belong,” Allura pointed towards the door at the end of the corridor, “out there. Soldiers.”

“Using my father’s A.I., I am have access to information about the external world that ordinary human eyes couldn’t dream to notice. I am the face of my network, so I keep in physical communication with each one of my contacts. I go wherever I need to be, and Coran’s the one who gets me there. Physically or emotionally,” she added with a small smile.

“Wait, what about me?” Lance asked.

“My father tells me you can talk. That’s a useful skill. And you know the city. As for your exact role, Lance, I’m… not sure,” Allura stated. Water under the bridge.

“Oh,” he said, dejectedly.

“Don’t be like that,” Allura chided. Lance recalled how his mother tapped the tip of his nose whenever his insecurities got the best of him. She’d tell him to cheer up, give him a hug that smelled like cinnamon, and tell him she loved him. It soothed him like honey and lemon - at least until he was yet again at the mercy of his self-doubt. Demons, always in the dark, always waiting to strike.

“Because I’ve decided that you’ll be attending the gala next week.”

Lance’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“You’re fucking kidding,” he gasped in disbelief. “Me? The fanciest party I’ve ever been to was my brother’s bachelor party. I can’t hack, I can’t… be sneaky, or smart, or whatever the hell you need to do to infiltrate the biggest company in the country.”

Allura said nothing, just raised a single well-groomed silver brow.

“Keith’s coming with you.” Coran added, macabre glee in his voice.

“ _What_?!” the two exclaimed, loudly, in unison, Keith’s hands raised in protest and Lance’s flabbergasted expression exaggerated to the point of comedy.

“Why not you, if your A.I. is so ‘advanced’ and ‘helpful’?” Lance pointed an accusatory finger at Allura in between excessive air quotes.

“Galtech and I have… personal history. Let’s just say they’ll definitely recognize me. White hair is hard to forget.”

Shiro sighed in solidarity.

“What about Shiro? I work _so_ much better with him,” Keith argued, exasperated. 

“Shiro is the only person to ever escape from Galtech experimentation alive. He’s one of the most wanted people in the entire city,” Allura calmly retorted, “Plus, you’ve never worked with Lance before, so you have no way of knowing how well you interact together.”

“He punched me in the face!” Lance cried, whirling his finger towards the man in question.

“I punched you in the _stomach_!”

“You don’t happen to have any popcorn, right?” Pidge muttered to Hunk as Lance and Keith argued nonsensically. Coran looked onwards with a bemused expression, Allura’s features remained blank and calm, and Shiro covered his face with his hand. 

“I wish,” Hunk lamented, still clutching the unopened pouch of mud-water.

“My decision is final,” Allura asserted, “there’s no point in arguing now. And, you two are the most logical pairing out of anyone here.”

Keith looked towards Shiro for assistance, desperation written plainly across his features. 

Shiro shrugged in return. Keith rubbed his eye with his middle finger.

Coran strode over to Lance and Keith, and clasped both of their shoulders with fatherly affection, only _slightly_ condescending in his movement.

“Cheer up, gang. It’ll be fun. You’ll get to dress up real nice, eat the fanciest food in the universe, mingle with the richest of the rich, steadily unlock the secret to one of the greatest evils on Earth - the works! What’s not to love?”

Lance and Keith groaned in conjunction. 

“The gala is in six days. I should receive the tickets from Shay in two to three days. In the meantime, Coran and I will instruct you two on the complexities of high society,” she glanced disapprovingly at the two. “I don’t suppose you’d be at all familiar.”

Lance groaned. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to even do.”

“You’re our key in finding out what exactly Galtech plans to unveil to its most-trusted investors and executives. You’re also there to possibly trace the stolen signal, seeing as it bears suspicious similarity to the digital signature of a Galtech higher-up.”

“We still know nothing about that damn signal,” Pidge sighed. Some part of her still hoped it was about her brother. The rest of her scolded herself for being that naive.

Allura hummed, vocal clutter, absent minded thought. “We know a little. We know it likely comes from someone deep within the Galtech chain of order. The night Shiro was returned, it was amplified beyond precedent. I… don’t think it’s about Shiro at all, though.” She looked at Pidge, “Or your brother.”

“What do you mean? What could it possibly be about?”

“Come with me,” her voice relented, body language defeated. “I have to show you something that you probably won’t like.”

She strode over towards the main computer, shoulders limp, and a map fizzled onto the screen. Lance instantly recognized it as a map to the city - his eyes naturally drawn to the south-western corner of the city, the seaside neighbourhood where he and his siblings fought and loved and grew up. 

The map, however, was mottled with thousands of tiny pinpricks, each dot corresponding with a date written in plain text beside it.

“The last known location of over eleven-hundred people. All reported missing, only one found.” Allura’s words were grave, her throat constricted. Shiro looked away from the screen.

“That’s insane,” Pidge stammered, “how on Earth did no one realize all these people had gone missing? Not one police report, not one investigation, not one news story. Nothing!” Her anger flared up again, wound rubbed raw by the fact she knew her brother was a statistic now.

“Eleven-hundred disappearances in a city of fifty million, reported over the course of six years?” Allura played the devil’s advocate, “that’s not exactly record-breaking.”

“Then why do you care,” Pidge’s voice cracked, her question _almost_ a plea.

“Because six years ago, Galtech released its first android model. The discontinued m4rm0-r4 series.”

“What are you suggesting?” Keith asked, low from the back.

Allura furrowed her brow. “I don’t know. I have no idea at all. My father and I both agree that something isn’t right. The timing can’t be a coincidence. In this damn city, nothing is a coincidence,” she sighed.

“I agree with you, Allura. Galtech's too clean. The timing’s too fishy,” Pidge concurred. “But there are millions and millions of androids in circulation. 5% of this city’s population is a bot. The numbers don’t add up.”

“And I’ve been getting this message way before six years ago,” Keith said. “How do you explain that?” he almost pleaded.

“I can’t explain either of those things!” Allura momentarily snapped, only to regain her composure a second later, “Which is _why_ I have you here. Getting to the heart of Galtech and toppling them with their own damn secrets is the entire point of my Lion’s Den. Our Lion’s Den. We need to understand,” suddenly, she looked very young, “I’m sick of being in the dark.”

“Allura, we all are,” Shiro stepped up, voice calm, soothing. “And we can do something about it. We have six days, so tell us what we need to do.”

Allura nodded, exhaled, straightened her shoulders, slipping back into the role of commander and leader bestowed on her by fate or circumstance. “You’re right. I’ll go over the details with Keith and Lance personally. Shiro, I’m going to put you in charge of managing my network as I help Pidge and Hunk retrieve blueprints and information. I also,” her gaze turned a shade lighter, “expect you all to learn how to play nice. Whether or not you work as a team could determine life or death. I fear that will be the most challenging task of them all.”

Keith and Lance side-eyed each other warily. 

“We’ll work on it,” Lance bit, forcing a smile towards Keith’s direction.

Keith snorted. Pidge tried to contain her laughter and failed.

Allura sighed. Heavily.

“Well, go team!” Shiro exclaimed, clapped once, forcefully. “What’s next?”

“Coran and I have some… business to conclude. It won’t take us more than a couple hours, at most.” Allura shifted, almost uncomfortably. “Until then, I’ll leave the rest of you to familiarize yourselves with the bunker. Nothing is off limits - what’s mine is yours. Cheesy, I know,” She smiled, tucking a stray piece of silver-snow hair behind her ear. “We’ll see you in a bit? Let’s go, Coran.” She exited into the hallway, Coran following closely. 

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna check out that bot,” Pidge said as soon as she heard the click of the door down the corridor. “Anyone coming?”

Keith looked at Shiro, who nodded slightly. “I’ll go,” he said, lining up beside Pidge.

“Wait a second. Since you’re gonna have to work extremely closely with Lance, Keith, don’t you think you two should stick together?” Shiro interrupted, his expression blank. Keith shot daggers towards his brother, the fury of ten thousand suns burning bright in his dark eyes. Lance audibly groaned, his shoulders slumping low. 

“Nuh-uh. Nope. Nein. _Nada_. No bots for me, one decapitated droid is enough for a freaking lifetime. Hell, one living droid is one too many,” Lance resisted, the combination of dissected android and the possibility of extended alone time with Keith a strong motivator.

He still didn’t really know why he didn’t like him. Maybe it was because he was utterly intrigued by the thunder-haired stranger with a knife like a flame and the bedside manner of a corpse.

Shiro raised his eyebrows with only the practiced skill of an older brother. Lance knew that goddamn look; the look filled to the brim with expectancy and the potential for bitter disapproval.

“Damn it,” Lance muttered as he stalked towards Keith and Pidge, waiting by the door. “You better owe me one.”

Shiro raised his palms in defense. “Helps nobody but yourself, my friend,” he said as Lance, Pidge, and Keith disappeared into the hallway - the one leading to the room that housed the almost-dead, never-living machine. 

The door slid closed behind them.

Hunk just shrugged at Shiro. Shiro shrugged back. Hunk laughed at the damn-near-comical expression on Shiro’s face, Shiro’s soon broke into a wide smile. A smile, a chuckle, a giggle, full-blown, choking laughter. 

The two laughed, laughed with stress and discomfort at shared humanity and circumstance. Laughed at the probability of it all, laughed because they were stuck in this forever and neither knew who would live and who would die, laughed because they were all so human, consumed by the maelstrom of possibility and revolution. 

Laughed because someone had to do it. Laughed because it happened to be them.

. . .

When the three entered the room, nothing had changed. The steady hum of computers and the beep of monitors and adjacent tech emanated throughout the pink-lit room like a symphony.

Pidge stared at the not-corpse hungrily. “I’ve never gotten to see the anatomy of an android up close,” she said with a grin alight with curiosity, “I never thought they would look this familiar. There!” she pointed to a skinned forearm, grey ligaments streaked with red and blue wires, “Change the colors, and that would be indistinguishable from a human arm.”

“How do they work?” Keith asked, indifferently.

“Why would _you_ care? Why would anyone care? God, they’re so… creepy,” Lance retorted, clearly uncomfortable, arms crossed, body angled away from the android.

“Just curious,” Keith muttered. 

“Solar and biofuel,” Pidge explained, “When there’s no sun, an android uses the energy stored from food as power. They have a sense of hunger, but can survive far, far longer than human beings without food. You know, most of their bodies are 3D-printed, all the machinery, musculature, cartilage, organs. But their eyes and skin are grown in a lab from real, human cells. Their hair is aso 3D-printed, but it can’t grow beyond what was installed.”

“Oh,” Keith replied.

She turned towards Lance, “And I _care_ because wouldn’t you want to understand how life works? Machine or human, we’re both alive. Like I told you before, androids are just another type of life. They’re different in form, maybe, but we’re still the same _thing_. The same blueprint. I wanna know humans better, and looking at bots helps.” She shrugged, “I don’t care if you’re uncomfortable with them. I wonder if you’d act the same around a human body. I wonder why there’d even be a difference at all.”

“They’re not like us, Pidge,” Lance protested, voice uncharacteristically calm, “Looking human doesn’t mean being human. I mean, think about it. A kid raised all alone without any friends or family or support is gonna end up weird. Different. Not accustomed to any human culture, interaction. I dunno; vitality. That’s kinda what a bot is. They don’t have any sense of family, or memories. Their lifespans are shortened too, yeah? They can’t live long enough to learn what it means to be human.”

Lance was human - his mind and memories told him so. He felt offended that some machine was trying to take that from him.

Keith remained unphased. “Androids and people are made up of the same molecules and atoms. We both have five fingers and two hands. A mind. What’s really the difference?” he said breathlessly, wistfully. 

“Exactly!” Pidge exclaimed, almost frustrated. “What’s the difference, and why does it matter so much to you?”

Lance just waved off the questioning. He knew that there was some truth to what they were saying, but that didn’t do anything to change the disgust and discomfort he felt when he saw the too-human face of a machine, the uncanniest of valleys. 

They stood in silence, gazing at the still body of the being in front of them, each mind alight with unanswered questions and fleeting thoughts.

“You wanna know what I’ve been thinking?” Lance asked, his tone thoughtful, melancholy - tinged with yellow-brown nostalgia.

“What’s that?” Pidge responded. 

“It’s like we’re living some grand cliche,” he chuckled, a little sarcastically, “Down the rabbit hole, blah-blah-blah. Some old man with a mustache and a white, white beard is going to come up and give some worthless spiel, like, ‘kid, someday you’re gonna ask yourself who you want to be in life.’”

Pidge snorted; Keith remained stoic - but it was clear he was listening.

“And I’m gonna say to the man: ‘Sir, I am a goddamn hacker _revolutionary_ that’s gonna change the freaking world. How’s that for a life?” he sniggered, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“I don’t see any revolution yet. Just some guy bitching at a bot,” Pidge argued, but she couldn’t help but laugh and feel a stranger solidarity in his words. It felt good to be where she knew she was meant to be.

“It’s almost like destiny,” Keith looked down towards the ground, a rare smile as light as a feather dusting his lips. Purple-hued black staring at the dark floor beneath his feet, something that felt like excitement and hope spreading through his fingertips. 

Lance blinked in surprise. “You believe in destiny?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes?” Keith rubbed the back of his head. “It depends on how I’m feeling.”

“What’d you mean?”

“Well, if things aren’t going so well, I don’t believe in destiny because… why would I ever want to think the universe wanted me to feel bad? But if things are going good, then I like to think that this was meant for me.” He sighed in micro-frustration. “It’s hard to explain.”

Lance paused for a moment. “No, I think I’m getting i-aaand, it’s gone. You lost me, man,” he said with an impish grin. Keith flicked his shoulder while Pidge laughed in the background.

“I get what Keith’s saying, though,” Pidge said, lacking anything but conviction.

“Oh? How’s that so?”

“I think this feels like fucking destiny.”

Lance gasped in mock surprise, eyebrows raised as high as physically possible. He swatted Pidge on the head, scolding her for her language. Keith chuckled, and Lance felt his heart jump. _That’s just because you’ve never heard him laugh before. Shit, you didn’t think he_ could _laugh_ , he reassured himself, nervous flitters of an unknown feeling echoing through his veins.

Pidge flipped him off, straight-faced and stoic, and Keith laughed again. Louder, this time. Lance’s heart swelled again, a veritable swarm of butterflies inside him. This time he had no excuse for his unruly heartbeat and erratic pulse. He looked at the laughing boy beside him with dilated pupils, dark hair curling around his lovely face, midnight eyes shining pink in the soft-like-petals glow of the room.

Lance had a dawning realization along the lines of: _oh, shit_. 

The machinery beeped like a heartbeat, steady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck soylent, am i right?  
> and, of course, i couldn’t help but add some klance ;) 
> 
> there will be more


	5. Exploitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People can kill, they can hurt, they can be the most terrifying thing in the entire universe. But they are us - we are them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am SO sorry for the delay guys - this chapter is a monster and it really got away from me. but on a happier note, happy bastille day everyone.
> 
> anyway, i've always wanted media that explores the other part of cyberpunk. we've all seen the same shot of deckard sulking through the rain, neon lighting his path as the city around him mulls in filth, but an uber-capitalist society has to have an upper class, right?
> 
> this chapter was also a personal reminder to myself that indeed i am writing a klance fic
> 
> side note: when it mentions suits and all that, i had [these](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/37/e5/2d/37e52d2554b142bc90a42672a43d6bf8.jpg) [two](http://www.onlinepackagedeals.com/images/1d8c2c997_grande.jpg) images in mind.
> 
> i always love to hear any comments - anything whatsoever - and thank you so much for reading!

PART TWO: LAUNCH COMMAND  
CHAPTER FIVE: EXPLOITATION

The night after the robo-room chat, Lance caught Keith beating the _everliving shit_ out of a sand-filled punching bag.

“Seems like you have a lot of unchecked range and aggression, my friend,” Lance smirked at Keith, dark bangs pinned above his forehead, “might wanna get that checked out.”

Keith glared at him, resuming his routine without a word.

Lance raised his palms in a defensive posture, “But hey, what do I know? I mean, you could be a perfectly, normal guy who just… I dunno, enjoys sucker-punching random strangers in the gut.”

Keith wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, despite its apparent dryness, sighing heavily. “Why do you keep going on about it? It happened a long time ago. We were fighting. It made sense _with the context_.” He was strange - he had an air of aloofness and intensity that Lance had seldom seen in anyone else. 

Water so hot it felt cold. 

Lance had never met anyone like Keith. He traversed the underbelly of the city he knew to be home, entered every coffee shop and bodega within fifty miles, petted every cat and breathed in the sweet oxygen of every houseplant, walked the city until he knew its veins in his dreams - and he had not once met anyone like the hot-voiced, black-haired stranger before him.

His heart was racing and he resorted to the familiar comfort of alienating humor.

He mocked a frown, wiping his eyes with a pathetically sad voice, “You hurt my feelings.”

Keith stared at him uncomfortably, mouth slightly open with squinted eyes, trying hard to discern whether or not Lance was genuinely upset over week-passed punch exchanged in a fistfight.

Lance laughed loudly,“I’m just fuckin’ with you, man.”

Keith groaned and returned to his punching bag.

“You still never apologized, though.”

Keith stopped and stared at Lance with blank eyes. Lance’s face split into an impish grin.

“I’m just saying!”

The black-haired man heaved a heavy sigh, dousing his face with water, steadily removing his black gloves. “Look,” Keith began, conviction and annoyance converging in a potent cocktail, “I don’t know you. And right now, you’re a little annoying.”

Lance feigned outrage.

“ _But_ … we have to work together. It’s not my choice, believe me. But I don’t want to die at this stupid party. I’m not gonna give up on this operation because my partner’s a douche. So. Truce?” Keith held out his hand, almost uncomfortably, sentences halting and forceful.

Lance looked at Keith’s hand incredulously. His fingers were long and thin, knuckles jutting out and veins obvious, nails bitten to death.

“Aww, you said I was your partner.”

“Oh, for the _love of_ \- !”

“And you still haven’t apologized!”

Hell hath no fury like a Keith scorned. “I am _this_ close-” he held his thumb and index finger dangerously close together. 

Lance laughed, that strange thrill bubbling up inside him like sun-gold champagne. “Okay, let’s make a deal. I’ll shake your hand if you apologize, and I’ll never mention it again. I promise.”

Keith glared at him. “I am not apologizing for punching you in a fist-fight.”

Lance cleared his throat and tapped his watch.

“Oh my god. Fine. _Fine_. I’m sorry for sucker-punching you, okay? Can we move on with our lives?”

“I accept your apology,” Lance smirked, shaking Keith’s extended hand, still warm from exertion, “It’s gonna be a pleasure doin’ business with ya. Let’s kick some robo-butt, alright?”

“How old are you again?” Keith said sarcastically.

“Twenty-one,” Lance replied, “I think.”

Keith did nothing as the conversation fizzled into silence. He reached for a towel and walked towards the exit. Lance noted he strode lightly, weight on his toes.

Keith paused at the door way. “You know this isn’t going to be easy, right?” The now-familiar pink lights of the hallway illuminated his frame, frizzed hairs a fuscia halo in the light.

Lance looked down at his feet. He knew with certainty that nothing in his life beyond the day he turned his back to face destiny and revolution was going to be easy. He knew that one-slip up, one mistake, and Galtech security would be all over them like flies on honey. What he didn’t know is what would happen when they were arrested - would they be used as human experimentation, like Shiro? Or would they be treated like any other pest, needle in the neck, bullet between the eyes?

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good.” Keith walked out into the hallway, the door sliding shut behind him.

Lance tasted salt and hot-red, purple black, tasted the future, the uncertainty to come, the thought of death chilling him ‘til his blood ran like ice.

. . .

The next five days passed with Lance seldom breathing in the lights of his beloved city. His time was filled with pleasant pink backlighting as opposed to a glaring over-use of neon, drills on how to infiltrate the ranks of the richest of the rich in place of of How to Use Your Gun 101: Idiot’s Edition. Smoke-purple eyes pouring into his field of vision instead of, well… nothing.

Shay dropped off a drive containing the codes of the tickets. Pidge erased Lance’s Garrison file, pretending it didn’t feel weird to help someone disappear off the face of the Earth. Keith didn’t have any files, medical records, passports - he said his dad made sure of it. Pidge shrugged it off as paranoia, but still. It didn't feel right. 

A problem for later. 

The next five days passed with an equal amount of tension and freedom. The seven people thrown together by circumstance and fate, however, did not feel like a family. Lance and Keith seldom talked outside of their necessary training - to Lance’s delight, of course; Hunk and Pidge threw themselves into work while Allura and Shiro cast off human necessities in order to lead. 

Coran seemed to be doing fine, however. Cheerful, motherly. At least there was that.

The next five days passed like the blink of an eye and before Lance knew it, he had memorized the number of flights of stairs, the structure of the ventilation, the exact geographical thumbprint of the high-end Galtech skyscraper destined to host the 2049 Investors and Partners of Gal Technology and Enterprises Semi-Annual Gala. Dorsett Chase was his new name - some new hotshot investor who couldn’t be bothered to show up to his first ever invitational event. No one knew what he looked like, not even Lance - despite the fact he knew every detail about the man’s life: how many kids he had, his wife’s internet search history, favorite way to unwind from the tensions of fat cat life (Golf. How cliche.). Lance memorized cufflink etiquette, the 15 most important partygoers’ middle names and marital status, how to properly eat snapper crudo with chiles and sesame without spilling like a damn fool.

The next five days passed with a hint of purple-black stardust and the laughing face of a stranger.

. . .

Lance had a suit he was forced to wear. Allura and Hunk clucked over the fit - mother hens alike - arguing about shape and length and countless other adjectives. The suit was a warm black, long, slim lines and an upturned collar, sleeves taken in at the elbows. His dress shirt was a rich navy blue-gray, almost skin tight. Shining cufflinks and a pale gold-tinted watch accented his exquisite outfit.

He looked damn good, he knew that for sure. _Too good_ , in fact. He had never felt more out of place in his life. He wasn’t sure if the man in the mirror, whose clothes secreted elegance and success and wealth, was actually him. Sure as shit didn’t feel like him. What his mother would think if she saw him now. 

Lance chuckled. He knew exactly what his mother would think.

Keith had a suit too. It was charcoal gray and bold scarlet - fiery, enticing, sexy. It fit to Keith’s figure with grace and sensuality, the thrilling colors amplifying the inexplicable surge of excitement Lance felt around him. Lance was beginning to get _really_ annoyed with his frantic heart.

Lance knew Keith’s name. He knew he was Shiro’s brother who moved in six years ago. He knew he liked rainbow nerds and had a shithole apartment and turned doorknobs with his right hand. He thought Lance was annoying.

_Well, he wasn’t wrong_ , Lance reconciled. He wondered if he was anything more to him. Not that it mattered, obviously.

. . .

Lance didn’t sleep that night. He didn’t sleep many nights, so it was statistically nothing new. He chewed on a coffee cube, mind blank and eyes tired.

The gala was at seven. They left at five. He had seven hours to kill before he swum with sharks in suits, the knife-stranger with a temper his only companion. 

Fuck.

He didn’t bother changing out of his sleeping clothes - hardly pajamas, yesterday's t-shirt and shorts - he would undergo extensive grooming under Allura’s command in three or so hours. 

Grooming designed to mask the fact he was a failing recruit without a future who joined an underground revolution out of self-loathing and desperation. Sure, he was certainly the type of guy who could easily make small talk with trillionaires who smelled of success.

Fuck.

He shuffled into the main room lined with computers, the stolen message only occasionally flickering in the contained cyberspace of the monitors. 

He didn’t feel good. He felt like he was standing on the edge of the world, a nice suit and a five-day crash course in someone else’s life his only support against the inevitable fall.

_Fuck_.

Allura sat in her egg chair - Lance came to the conclusion it was kind of like her throne. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran huddled by a computer displaying white text and 3D blueprints. Shiro leaned against the corner of the room, typing something on his watch. The tension was palpable - no one knew what to say or how to say it. They knew they were watching victims walk off a plank and couldn’t do anything to stop it. Keith was nowhere to be seen.

“How are you feeling, Lance?” Allura said, too calmly for the room. 

Lance groaned. He hated that they were ignoring the foreboding cloud above their heads under the guise of protecting him. He knew they were trying to protect themselves from having to face the thundercloud, neon-scented reality, too. Lance always felt pointing out the unwanted and obvious was the best way of dealing with it. 

Unless _it_ had to do with black-eyed strangers.

“Ugh. C’mon guys. Cut the bullcrap. Yeah, sure, I’m about to do the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life and I could die or whatever. Yeah, you might never see me again. Would you really miss me that much?” He added with a grim chuckle. “But Christ, y’all. Do you really want my last morning on Earth to be so mopey? I would say to let a little sunshine into the room, but there’s not a single window in this underground shithole.” 

“Listen, man,” Hunk began, unsteadiness echoing in his words, “this isn’t a game. This is _real_ \- you could die tonight. Your aloof, ‘couldn’t-give-a-shit’ attitude isn’t gonna do anything when you’re knee-deep in Galtech execs looking for any sign of weakness. I’m just saying: grow up and watch out.” Hunk ruffled the back of his hair in agitation, body language stiff and uncomfortable.

“May I remind you that it wasn’t my choice to go on this mission? I never wanted to do this. I’m like, the second least qualified person in the entire world for this shindig. No offense, Shiro.”

“None taken, Lance. But, Hunk is right. You need to look out for yourself - your life depends on your ability to react maturely and precisely. This is some serious, adult stuff - and you need to be ready for any obstacle,” Shiro said, steadily. Lance couldn’t tell if he was genuinely concerned or merely stepping up to the role of leader because he had to. He also knew that that was unfair to Shiro - the man had been through hell and back - but _damn_ if it didn’t feel true. 

“And besides, weren’t you the one who chose to join Lion’s Den? You wanted to be here, man. I tried to warn you. And now you gotta face the consequences and make the sacrifices” Hunk raised a thick eyebrow, no anger his voice. He knew Lance too well to be mad at him - he knew this was just Lance’s way of dealing with anxiety and unspoken fears. 

Lance knew he was being unreasonable, but he didn’t care. Throughout his entire life, he always felt that people whispered behind his back, pitying him, mocking him. He hoped enrolling in the Garrison would prove to his family that he wasn’t the purposeless looser his father was. 

That turned out well. 

He made his first actual choice in his life for him and _him_ alone that hot spring night in the soft pink hallway. Freedom and fire and self-decided purpose tasted like honey, and now that agency was being taken from him and he knew he didn’t really have the guts to fight back. A small part of him hoped he would die at the gala just to prove that they had made a mistake. Another part of him wanted to be the hero - plant the chip, unravel the mystery, accomplish everything and more - to prove to himself that he wasn’t the fuck-up he thought the world saw him as.

“Oh, for - will you shut up about that already? Easy for you to say - you had to choose between being the best damn mechanic in the state versus… I don’t know, danger and gunfire. I had a ‘choice’ between flunking out of the Garrison or _being_ someone. It wasn’t so much a choice as it was a-a-a ‘mature and logical’ course of outcome. I made that ‘choice’ for me, and now, I’m going on a suicide mission wearing some other man’s goddamn eyeballs. Everything since that night in the hallway been decided by someone else. I’m sick and tired of you two,” he pointed at Shiro and Allura with utter vitriol, “telling me what to do! I said I didn’t want to go on this goddamn mission, and now you’re shitting yourselves over the fact that I might die! A-and then, you blame _me_ for being childish so you can get away with a clear conscious that you maybe _didn’t_ send an unwilling man to his death.” 

Shiro blinked, Allura looked away. Lance knew he had read her right - she was as insecure as he was, doubt ate holes in her facade like Swiss cheese, too proud to admit she was human.

Lance dragged his hand down his face. He felt so tired and so scared. He wanted to change things - the world, himself - but now, he had to face the fact that he might die tonight, the last faces he would ever see belonging to people who think he’s worthless. 

Shiro stepped forward, his hands hovering around Lance’s shoulders, “Lance, please. You’re exhausted and nervous. Take a nap, calm down. We’re not angry at you - you’re a priceless member of this team, and it’s in your best interest - as well as ours - if you relax.”

“I don’t want to die. A nap’s not gonna wipe that… that _thought_ from my mind.” He looked down at his shaking hands and nothing felt real. He sighed, the weight of the world settling on his chest. “I honestly can't _believe_ I'm going to say this, but, I'm gonna go find Keith.”

He stalked out of the room, dark, angry tendrils settling around his throat, thundercloud heavy and purple. Fear pulsing just beneath his skin. _Fuck_ , Lance thought, _I don't want to die_.

The rest stewed in silence a few beats after he left. 

“What the hell?” Pidge shook her head and steadily turned her gaze back towards her computer, more inconvenienced than concerned. 

“I'm sorry about him, guys,” Hunk sighed. He would always take the fall for his best friend. Lance didn't know it, but Hunk knew him better than Lance knew himself. The little details, how he always scanned a room before he entered, hands drawn close to his torso, insecure, always looking for someone he thought would judge him for messing up or being alive. “He’s really, _really_ freaked out. Give a few and he’ll cool down and come ‘round. I mean, he kinda does have a point. This is the most dangerous thing he’s ever done in his entire life. He’s got a right to be a little stressed.”

Coran nodded and exhaled slowly, through his nose. “I’m not worried about him. That kid can talk his way out of anything. He’ll survive. I’m as sure as the moon.”

“Yeah. We should give Lance his space. It'll be alright,” Shiro calmly headed over towards where Pidge was hunched over at the computer. “Everything up to speed?”

Pidge nodded, the white-blue screen glinting off of the smooth lenses of her glasses. The circular LEDs tracked her irises as they darted across the screen. “All good. Lance and Keith will enter using the codes provided by Shay. The retina contacts I ordered arrived yesterday, so that’s how they’ll get through security. The hard part will be maintaining cover for as long as humanly possible until the unveiling at eleven. Before the party officially ends at one, they’ll plant this bug in one of the thermostats,” Pidge waved a thin, red object that looked like a circular sticker, “this’ll give us access to any and all audio within the building. They’ve memorized any possible exits in case of emergency.” She pushed her glasses up. “They’re good to go, honestly.”

Allura ruffled the back of her bob with her right hand and pinched the bridge of her nose with the other. “Everything… will be fine. We’ve trained for this. We’re ready. Right, Coran?”

He smiled warmly, the deep crinkles around his eyes radiating comfort - Coran was an anchor in the maelstrom of mutiny, a reminder of home in the city of lost souls. “Yeah, we’re ready.”

. . .

Lance found Keith doing push-ups - his back straight, shoulders strong.

“Hey man,” Lance said weakly, his damn heart still pounding from his outburst. Keith wasn't helping. 

“Hey,” he responded in between reps. 

“You ready for tonight?” Lance asked, if not a little stiffly. He was beginning to question why he sought out the black-haired man in the first place. 

“Yeah,” Keith said, rising to his full height, rubbing his face with his hand even though Lance couldn't see any sweat. “You?”

Lance shrugged, and Keith looked at him with a warning in his eyes. 

“I had… a bit of an outburst this morning.” Lance confessed. Keith raised his eyebrows but said nothing. 

“I just… how do you do it, man? How do you walk into danger and fire and not freak _out_ because you might die at any second? How come you're so… nonchalant about this entire thing?” The words poured out of him like a leak in a pipe.

Keith blinked in surprise. Lance was volatile and he didn’t know what to do. He never knew what to do when people got like this - oftentimes, he was just as confused as they were.

He fiddled with his glove, unease written plainly across his face. “I don't know. I just don't think about it. I know what I need to get done and I do it,” he shrugged, much to Lance’s irritation, “That's all.”

“What'd you mean, ‘that's all’? We could die tonight and you-you what? Just don't care?” Lance was loud, frustrated at no one but himself. He wasn’t angry, though. Just sad, a little lost - like the millions of other souls drifting in eternity, surrounded by neon and wires that choked the air out of lungs already blackened by smog.

Keith cocked his head, “You said you had an outburst?”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck with unease, pacing across the room. “Ugh. Bullshit melodrama, man. I overreacted. I said some things to Shiro and Allura, kinda blamed them for - well, things they shouldn’t be blamed for. I just felt like… I didn’t have a say in my own fate, you know? I mean, I chose to be here. I made that decision for no one but myself. First time I’ve ever done that in my whole life,” he said, darkly, “And now, it feels like everything’s getting away from me so… so _fast_. Like I’m just watching myself from somewhere outside and I can’t do _anything_ if I end up dead. I guess that’s really the heart of it.” He looked up at Keith, his dark eyes sobering and human - listening with the intensity of a priest hearing a confession. Lance laughed, chuckled nervously. His smile was sad and scared. 

“I just - _shit_ , man. I just don’t want to die.”

Keith walked over to where Lance stood, shoulders trembling, face covered with his hands. “I don’t wanna die,” he whispered, voice like broken glass.

“Shh. Shhhh. It’ll be okay,” Keith patted Lance’s shaking shoulder, a little awkwardly. Not without conviction, however. “You're not gonna die, you hear me?” he said, his voice forcefully comforting. “You're not. I've decided it.”

Lance chuckled quietly, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm. “Oh? Who put you in charge?”

Keith snorted, “No one. But that’s why I’m a revolutionary, I guess.” When Keith smiled, his purple-dark eyes lit up with an almost impish quality, his mouth crooked, only slightly upturned. He didn’t show his teeth, but his cheeks crinkled upwards. His smile changed his entire face - the most modest of metamorphoses.

(Lance felt his heart skip a beat. He blamed it on his nerves.)

“Did you - did you just sorta make a joke?” Lance laughed, his voice lilting - blinking away tears and the thought of dying. Keith shrugged, and Lance laughed harder. 

“Hey, Keith.” Lance looked down towards the thunder-haired boy, “I guess you're not so bad.”

“I thought we established that already when I graciously apologized for punching you during a fistfight,” Keith was smiling, his words absent of bite. 

“Oh, now _you're_ the one bringing it up. I see,” Lance grinned. He felt light, the same placebo-high he felt around his house plants, knowing that it was safe to breathe, safe to unfurl himself from the mask he always wore. He felt okay.

He glanced at his watch. 11:00. Lance pointed to the door behind him with his thumb. “I should go, I dunno. Apologize. Get my head right,” he waved his index finger like he was waving a miniature flag on the Fourth, “Whoo, whoo. Go team?”

Keith nodded in reply, settling back down on the floor of the wide-open gym space. 

“Hmm-m,” Lance murmured, hand resting on the cool glass of the sliding door. “Keith. I mean it. You're alright, man.”

Keith smiled to himself, the shadows of his hair hiding the smile like a treasure. “You too,” he said, barely above a whisper.

. . .

Lance found Shiro and Allura sitting across from one another one the floor, lounging on the minimalistic pillows strewn across the floor of Allura’s bedroom. The room was simple, clean lines and solid colors like the rest of the bunker, a capsule bed in the corner and a desk with three computer screens adjacent. A small hologram projection flickered through shapes, the Galtech logo, a map of the city, a tall man with shoulder-length hair.

“Oh, hey Lance,” Shiro said in surprise, “We were just talking about Galtech.” He stood up to meet him, Allura followed close by, her eyes guarded. She reminded him of Keith, sometimes. They had the same intensity - lightning crackle gaze, ozone before the storm. 

Lance sighed, shoulders slumping. “I'm sorry Shiro, Allura. I'm scared and I took it out on you. Hunk’s right, I chose to be here. I know everything will turn out fine. I-I mean, I'm still a little freaked but… at least I know it's my choice to be freaked. The world’s only what you make it, right? Or some B.S. like that, I'm not too sure about the accura-” His ramble was interrupted by both Shiro and Allura reaching out, clasping his shoulders with care. 

Shiro’s scarred face was kind and Allura’s hauntingly blue eyes softened. “We know, Lance. I'm not sure I have the guts to do what you're about to do,” Shiro said with the poise of a father. Or a brother forced to be one by fate. 

“And I'm sorry for not listening to you,” Allura said like a confession, “Even though I know it's for the best. But please, Lance. Come back to us?” Her accented voice broke ever-so-slightly, humanly, and Lance knew she truly _cared_ about his life. 

It was a pleasant feeling. 

“I will. No stupid party is gonna be the death of me. Nuh-uh,” he shook his head, eyes shut, “Three fish eggs and a leaf on a cracker is _not_ gonna be my last meal. I have spoken.”

Shiro and Allura laughed. Lance laughed, too, the room smelled like home and comfort and fresh oxygen. 

Lance felt okay.

. . . 

Lance emerged from his room twenty minutes to five in the most expensive suit in the universe, hair soft, feathery, professionally youthful. He smelled like berries and smoke - high end cologne adorning his neck.

Keith waited by the door leading to the city, looking as sharp as the knife in his pocket, hair tamed and slicked back, his pale face fully visible without his thunderstorm bangs. 

Lance blushed, suddenly grateful for the dim lighting. 

“C’mon, we gotta catch our train,” Keith said, looking down at his watch. He swatted a stray clump of stiffened hair from his vision, ruffling his sharp curls with practice. 

“You remember the plan, right?” Pidge’s high-pitched voice emerged from the doorway. Shiro, Coran, Hunk, and Allura stood behind her - each face a picture of concern. 

Lance tapped his temple, hissing slightly, “Ooh, shit. I forgot. What was it again?”

No one looked amused. 

“Guys. I'm okay now. It's okay. I know I had like, the biggest freak out ever, but I got this. We got this. I won't let you down,” he said, truth spelled out in his eyes and posture. “I promise.”

“Lance, we need to go. Bye, everyone. Bye, Shiro. We’ll be fine,” Keith said, curtly. Lance blinked - was that a touch of anxiety in his voice?

“He's right,” Lance said. He made guns with his hands, the soft pink room reflecting in his gold cufflinks. “See you guys later,” he shot the guns and exited the room, closely following behind Keith’s heels. 

“Je- _sus_ Christ. I pray that that's not the last thing I'll ever see him do,” Pidge muttered, and Hunk nodded profusely. 

“They'll be fine, Allura,” Shiro squeezed her shoulder, “this is the first step into the bonfire. But once the embers are lit, it'll never stop burning.”

“I know,” Allura said, and the fire reflected behind her machine-blue eyes.

. . .

The train ride passed without incident. The smooth interiors, white and minimalistic, were foreign to Lance - who was a slave to the public transportation system - rat-filled, android operated, dark and dank and coated in the grime and the dirty lives of millions of people. In many ways, the transportation systems were reflective of the city’s own demographics. People lived in tiny, one-room apartments filled to the brim with salvage and survival, neon burned into their eyes and memory without choice or protest - all while the wealthy sipped imported champagne-nectar in their penthouses, fucking the most beautiful bots, feeding off of the life and work of the poor who starve and scrape and die ‘beneath’ them. 

The American dream, right?

Lance watched as the skyscrapers and dots of light moved past him as the train bulleted towards the northern part of the city. It was colder in the north, cloudier too. The Golden Gate Bridge had long fallen to changing seasides and rising tides - instead a smooth, white marvel of modern engineering stood in its wake.

He ran over the details of Dorsett-what’s-his-face in his head. Keith was some other newbie investor, virtually unheard of, never seen before. The contact lenses clouded his vision and scratched his eyes uncomfortably. Lance blinked away tears. 

He noticed Keith gripping the armrest with murderous intent. “You good, man?” Lance questioned, trying to ignore Keith’s set jaw and white-knuckled hands. 

“They took my brother. They tortured Shiro,” Keith muttered, fire in his molten voice, “they’d be lucky if I _only_ killed them.”

“Woah, _dude_. Chillax. Okay, I can’t exactly talk about ‘chillaxing’, but our number one priority here is to _not get killed_. Going on a knife-murder-spree in the middle of ten-million or so robo-guards is the number one way to _not_ accomplish that goal,” Lance rubbed his face, “We’re here to scope out whatever they’re ‘revealing’, or whatever. Then we plant the chip and get free dirt on the bastards for life. Then we make a clean getaway and bada-bing, bada-boom, we’re out.”

Keith said nothing, just stared at the setting sun outside the window. 

“Look. It’s in everyone’s best interest if we just do what we gotta do. Think about what Shiro would want, man. I know you can control your temper,” Lance patted the top of Keith’s hand, no longer strangling the armrest, savoring the feeling of his smooth skin, warm to the touch.

“I fucking hate them, Lance,” Keith spat. “Them and their money and lies and metal cronies. I want them all to rot in hell.”

“Yeah, me too, buddy. Me too. But that’s a battle for another day, right?”

Keith exhaled through his nostrils, Lance watched from the window seat as the city reflected itself in Keith’s eyes.

. . .

The two exited the train at the third-to-last stop. They said nothing to each other, Lance fighting back fear at mental sword point, Keith running through protocols in his head. They strode alongside thousands of others in the high-end part of the city - less neon, more white high-rises with glass balconies and rooftop gardens. Lance knew the northern neighborhoods in theory, but felt like a stranger amongst all this class and wealth, even in his suit. There wasn’t nearly enough neon and pollution and grime for him to feel comfortable. The hot, almost-desert of the south where Los Angeles once stood tall took the brunt of the government’s dissolution, and so the city divided itself: poor folk in the south, fat cats in the north.

They looked upon the building that housed the party was comprised of slim, curved lines and a glass facade lined with white structural accents. It grasped towards the heavens like the curves of a stretching arm - organic and simple. 

“Holy shit, Keith, this place’s gorgeous,” Lance whispered as the sun finished its descent into the ocean.

“It’s not Keith, it’s Sean,” he hissed. Despite this, Keith (Sean?) looked genuinely impressed, “Yeah. I’m not gonna lie, it’s intimidating.” Lance nodded, agreeing enthusiastically. He took note of how Keith spoke like everything he said was a tried-and-true fact. Not that he believed everything he said was right, just the cadence and certainty of his voice created this aura of definity and self-assured honesty. _Why_ Lance noticed this was beyond him.

“We enter there,” Lance cocked his head towards the black-suited security guard standing in front of the biggest glass door Lance had ever seen. A pathway of smooth concrete lined with white lilies and bluebells led to the steps towards the door. He looked down at his body, smoothed his suit and checked his watch. 8:03. Fashionably late. He exhaled - nerves on _fire_ \- as he and Keith strode up the steps with as much grace and class as two slum-rats could muster. 

Lance had never swum with sharks before. He never wanted to. Except, these sharks had billions of dollars to their names, seven affairs (on average), and were probably indirectly responsible for a dozen-or-so deaths _each_.

The guard’s piercing blue cybernetic eyes scrutinized the two men like a wolf scanning for weak prey. “Tickets and identification please,” she said in a deep, monotonous voice. 

Lance had been designated keeper, and he drew a slim smartphone from his pockets. He offered the phone displaying the ticket code to the guard, who reached a veiny hand in return. The set-sun caught her bronze skin, and Lance saw the slightest violet sheen ripple across her wrist like a fish’s scales. 

She scanned the codes and nodded, handing the phone back to Lance. “This your first gala? Never seen you around before, Mr. - uh, - Chase. You neither,” she looked towards Keith, “Mr. Raquel-Rosen.”

Lance flashed her an ivory smile. “You’re absolutely right. Forgive me if I’m a little wet around the ears,” he laughed, pleasantly. “My partner Sean, on the other hand, is a natural people-person. He’ll catch on quick.” He glanced at Keith, who proffered the smallest, most awkward smile Lance had ever seen.

The guard snorted, and held her scanner up to Lance’s eyes. In the years that followed the government’s collapse, retail stores and local shops declined - the streets were too risky, too volatile. Thus, the online market exploded to unfathomable heights, and the black market of the deep web grew alongside it. Technology advanced, and the market followed suit. 

The guard scanned Keith’s eyes, ushering Lance to the door. “Good luck, newbies,” she muttered as the two entered the climate-controlled paradise behind the grand glass doors.

_God bless the deep web_ , Lance thought, sighing in relief.

“We made it,” he whispered to Keith.

“Yeah,” Keith replied, and Lance saw tension dissolve from his brow. “Now, we gotta survive the party.”

Lance groaned, “Oh, yeah. Shit. I forgot.”

The lobby was simple, mostly white walls decorated with floating art and Rothko paintings. A simple waterfall trickled, the sound echoing throughout the room. Holographic tape guided them towards a glass elevator encased in a clear shoot. The doors slid open, the cool trance music greeted the two as they entered. A violet-tinted bellboy operated the interior, instinctively pressing the rooftop button. The two men wearing the lives of another and the machine wearing the skin of a human ascended towards the sky, the clear shaft sending Lance’s head into a state of vertigo. 

“Enjoy the party,” the bellboy’s cheerful voice chased them out of the elevator. Lance and Keith walked steadily, silenced by the simple beauty of the white, white hallway before them. They headed towards another set of glass doors, not nearly as large, but just as elegant and intriguing. 

Lance had to hold his jaw from dropping to the floor when the two entered through the doors. The party was hosted in the rooftop garden - the endless city twinkled in the horizon, the neverending skyline stretched until the end of the world. Holographic orbs lit up the artificial trees designed to catch CO2, a bar crafted with dark, rich wood, smooth curves, and the clearest glass, backlit by a cool violet attracted the guests like flies. Purple-shimmering servers carrying trays of assorted delicacies too expensive for common sense darted around the mass of guests like tadpoles in a lily-pond. 

A live band played a cool instrumental, jazz the color of deep burgundy, soft like velvet. 

“Keith - er - Sean, I never wanna fucking leave,” Lance gasped. He felt like a blubbering fish, gasping for air, the wind sucked out of his lungs by modern glamor and the elegance of affluence. 

“Remember why you’re here. These people are snakes, all of them,” Keith whispered poisonously. 

Lance smacked his arm as a woman in a well-fitted gold and navy dress walked up to them, grinning. Lance quickly smiled in return, eyes set on the blonde woman approaching them, praying that Keith was doing the same.

She was beautiful, cat-like eyes slanted upwards - glittering amethysts - her long blonde hair drawn tight in a ponytail, small mouth with a taught Cupid’s bow smiling, pale skin creamy in the violet orange glow of sunset. She reminded Lance of a blue-ringed octopus - beautiful, colorful and exquisite, but one touch and you’re dead on the concrete.

“Hello, gentlemen. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you before,” her voice secreted class and entitlement, and the hairs on the back of Lance’s neck stood up when he realized he had to spend five hours masquerading as a person of her ilk. A person who would steal candy from a motherfucking baby if it meant she could sell said candy to a hungry market who didn’t care where goods came from. As long as it tasted sweet, right?

“No, we’re rather recent investors,” Lance smiled. He hoped the sugar in his voice matched hers. “The name’s Dorsett Chase, this is my partner Sean Raquel-Rosen. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He held out his hand, Keith followed suit. The woman shook each, her grip firm and confident. 

“Nyma Tyrell,” she said. Lance had to stop himself from appreciating her silky, alluring voice. Strangers now-a-days had the sexiest of voices, it seemed. 

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Tyrell,” Keith said, his caution obvious. 

“Oh, don't. Ms. Tyrell is my mother,” she laughed. Lance and Keith chuckled in return, the exchange textbook. 

Lance was beginning to think this would be easier than he thought. 

“Please, call me Nyma,” she smiled, violet cosmetic-cybernetic eyes sparkling. 

“I'm sorry, did you say Tyrell? As in Tyrell Enterprises?” Lance said in his best “impressed” voice. He felt like a fraud, but it seemed to be working. 

Nyma feigned humility (frauds alike), but Lance could tell she was waiting to see if he recognized her. 

Keith forced himself not to roll his eyes. Everyone in this God-forsaken party had scandal hidden up their sleeve, a secret - covered in soil from the cold ground where it was buried deep, deep, a dangerous agenda made of viper venom and wasp’s wings. He wondered why these people even bothered with their gilded lives, money hiding the rotting decay behind gold bars. They lived false realities, lying to themselves and the world. They weren’t happy. Keith never understood how anyone would want to live an existence that wasn’t real. 

“You don't have to be humble with me, Ms. Tyrell; your company practically revolutionized 3D printing! This gala should be held in _your_ honor, for Christ’s sake,” Lance exclaimed with the attitude of a young man just barely introduced to the world that could be, in awe of his surroundings, in awe of what he now knew to be _real_. The best lies are shrouded in truth.

Nyma murmured pleasantly, “Please, it’s my mother’s company. I’m an heiress, that’s all.” 

“I own stock in Tyrell Enterprises”, Keith mused. True to form, Sean Raquel-Rosen had made millions trading the market - rising up, surviving by his wit and the skin of his teeth, new and hungry. 

“Every sane person should,” Lance added with a sly glance in the woman’s direction. 

She squeezed his shoulder, looking down at the smooth, beautiful concrete, “You flatter me.”

“Oh, good. I’m trying,” Lance said, smiling towards her. Keith looked away.

“You trying to sell me something?” She laughed - the practiced, careful laugh of someone used to making friends.

“Why? You interested in buying?” Lance had to squash his flat accent - the one that dulled t’s and flattened -ings. A sobering reminder that he didn’t belong here, not ever.

“Hmm,” Nyma purred, “depends on who the salesman happens to be.” The music of the band lilting overhead, the city sparkling like the stars below. The chatter of the party was pleasant, the sophisticated sounds of the highest of humanity. 

Except not really. Keith wondered how many secrets were being traded in the crowd - surrounded by fairy lights and rosebushes, lies and money were exchanged like candy. 

Nyma brushed Lance’s chest - lightly, for a split second. Lance blushed - he hoped the peach glow of the setting sun was enough to mask the red slowly spreading across his cheeks. He had never considered himself attractive - his face was too sharp, nose too long, eyebrows too thin. The men and women he hit on at the Garrison were never too receptive - the school was filled to the brim with nerds, anyway, he told himself. 

But now, a beautiful woman was flirting with him, _obviously_. He thought maybe it was the suit’s doing.

“What did you say your name was again?” Nyma murmured, gazing directly into Lance’s dark ocean blue eyes.

“I’m going to check out the bar,” Keith said, haltingly. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Tyrell.” Shoulders hunched, hands deep in his pockets, he stalked off towards the bar.

Lance blinked, “Oh, okay. I’ll be around in a second. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” he called after Keith. “My name’s Dorsett Chase Jr - please, Dorsett’s my father. Call me Mr. Chase,” he said, returning his eyes to Nyma, whose laugh echoed like wedding bells.

. . .

Keith heard the sound of the young woman’s laugh behind him. He approached the bar - which easily spanned fifteen feet - and signaled to the bartender whose skin shimmered violet underneath the same-hued backlighting. Keith felt the familiar pang of sadness - close to pity - when he saw the purple sheen of her skin.

“I don’t get out much,” he said to the woman over the chatter of the party, “What’s your favorite?” 

“I don’t drink, if you can believe it,” the bartender replied, “Alcohol messes with the machinery.”

“Me neither,” Keith said. 

“I’d go with the Roy Rogers,” the bartender held her chin in thought.

“Sure,” Keith affirmed, proffering a ten dollar bill in payment. The bartender looked at the cash strangely, but shrugged and accepted the money.

“You know,” the bartender said, pouring the grenadine over ice, “most people who come around here know their liquor. Too well, I think.”

“I’m new,” Keith stated, “Got on my feet about a year and a half ago.”

“Huh,” the bartender slid Keith the syrupy brown drink, “there ya go, then. What a sad existence we live, huh?

Keith smiled tightly, turning a shoulder away from the bar, facing the lilac sky - steadily darkening. There were never any stars. 

He took the stirred the drink and took the straw out, setting it on the bar behind him. He savored the saccharine fizz of the beverage, feeling the coolness of the glass emanate outwards. Keith looked towards Lance, who was dancing to a jazzy tune with Nyma on his arm. She said something and he burst into laughter, sound drowned out by the band.

Keith hoped Lance wouldn’t forget himself - mesmerized by violet eyes and sleek blonde hair, the tinkling of laughter, the smell of money. 

Keith didn’t know why his chest felt heavy, constricted. He waved at Lance, who spotted him from across the crowd. He said something to Nyma that Keith couldn’t hear, and trotted over to the bar, panting, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

“Having fun?” Keith said flatly. Lance chuckled in return.

“Hell yeah, man. And here I was, scared of _dying_ \- oh, bartender? Yeah, I’ll have a Vodka Greyhound - thank you,” Lance laughed to himself, words cluttered together with breathlessness, “This is the most fun I’ve ever had - like, more fun than my brother’s bachelor party. And that had a disco ball. Shit, I’m not even drunk yet. I - what? Why are you laughing?”

Keith smirked, “A Greyhound? That's the girliest drink ever.”

Lance blushed, “Shut up, it’s fucking delicious.” 

Keith laughed lightly, then settled into silence. “Be careful, Lance. The night’s not over yet.”

“Yeah, isn't that great? I feel like Cinderella or some shit.”

“Remember why we’re here,” Keith insisted, “We’re not one of them,” he added, his voice low over the murmur of the crowd. 

“I know that, man,” Lance rubbed the back of his neck, holding his cool drink to his forehead. He sighed in relief as the cold chased away the sticky sweat adorning his forehead.

“Don't forget it,” Keith muttered into his glass. 

Lance cocked an eyebrow. “You okay? You seem a little… tense.”

“Yeah, I'm tense. I hate everyone here. Vipers, all of them.” His voice was low, a near growl. 

Lance nodded, “Yeah.”

Keith scoffed, “Oh _sure_. You’re practically best friends with-what’s-her-name hotshot heiress. Maybe more than friends,” he took a deep sip of his drink, welcoming the cool tingle of the bubbles against his throat.

“Oh my god, are you jealous?” Lance giggled, hand covering his mouth.

Keith crossed his arms, turning his gaze to the endless city that never quite felt like home.

“And _please_ , not all of us are comfortable sulking - _alone_ \- by the bar, taking sultry drinks of a - what is that? Is that non-alcoholic?”

Keith nodded, “Alcohol gives me hives.”

“Huh. Anyway, everyone is watching, Keith. Oh, shit; _Sean_. If we stay outsiders here, we’ll blow our shot. Two guys standing alone talking to no one isn’t exactly normal behaviour here. We’d stick out like a sore thumb,” he waved to Nyma, who grinned at him from across the rooftop, “And besides. It’s good to make friends, especially in my line of work.”

“Oh? And what line of work is that?” Keith asked, unconvinced. 

“Seduction,” he purred, waggling his eyebrows.

Keith choked on his drink and smacked Lance, who was doubled over in laughter, on the shoulder.

Their noise died down and the two sat still, drinking in the sweet nectar of wealth and glamor and success. People bustled in and out of conversations, downed shots, burned bridges while simultaneously building three more, Kissed and cheated, bet millions on the sliver of a chance there would be trillions in return. The soft burgundy of the music complimented the chatter of humanity.

It was about nine thirty, the sun had fully disappeared into the ocean waters. The sky was never pitch-black, always lit by the millions of glistening buildings that yawned across the coast. Lance chatted with people who came up to them, saying that they had seen him dancing with Nyma. Lance flashed them a billion-dollar smile and went along with their games and questions, smoothly. For all his fanfare and fear about dying and failure, Lance was doing _extremely_ well. He was in his element (even if he didn't know it), Keith noted as he saw Lance deliver a well-received joke, accompanied by tasteful laughter and handshakes. Keith preferred the grim back-alleys where the only people he met were those trying to rob him. But Lance came alive surrounded by those expecting to play him like a fiddle, only to leave charmed, intrigued. 

“Mmm. What’d you think of this song, Keith? Sean, _holy shit_ , whatever,” Lance said during a moment of solace in between fake conversations and lying laughter.

“It’s a little slow,” Keith admitted. He didn’t listen to much music beyond the natural hum of his computers and the neverending sounds of the city outside his window.

“That’s why it’s perfect.”

“For what?”

Lance’s ocean eyes twinkled impishly in the blue glow of the bar, reflecting the skyscrapers glittering like jewels behind them. 

“No,” Keith crossed his arms, “Go ask Nyma, or whatever.”

“Holy crap, you are _so_ jealous,” Lance laughed, his nose tinged pink with alcohol, three Greyhounds deep.

Keith shrugged.

“I’m not asking Nyma. I’m asking you,” Lance insisted.

Keith raised an eyebrow, his expression the epitome of incredulity. “You can’t be serious.”

“What? Everyone’s dancing,” Lance lowered his voice to a whisper, “It’ll help our cover.”

Keith shifted uncomfortably, “I’m not good at it.”

“Holy shit, you want it in writing? Want a waiver? _Sean Raquel-Rosen_ ,” Lance laughed, “would you dance with me?” He offered his hand to the man in front of him, who stared at it like it was made of fire.

“Why?” Keith hesitated, taking Lance’s hand, warm and dry, in his own.

Lance shrugged, “Because I’m tipsy and I don’t wanna dance alone. C’mon. Before the song ends.”

Lance dragged Keith through the nebulous crowd of exquisitely-dressed individuals with a cackle. The smooth percussion writhed throughout the crowd, shifting sheets of sound soft like silken threads. Lance laughed at the utterly confused look on Keith’s face as Lance settled his hands on Keith’s (boney) hips, the dark gray neo-fabric shifting against his palm. At Lance’s instruction, Keith draped his arms around Lance’s shoulders. Lance’s forehead leaned close to his, Keith could feel the subtle heat radiating off of his brow. Keith’s pulse raced, Lance’s giggle ringing in his ears long after it had passed.

“What now?” Keith whispered, unsure, in Lance’s ear.

“You’re _adorable_ , you know that? You just gotta feel the music, man. Holy crap. I didn’t think anyone’s hips could be so _stiff_. You the goddamn… Tin Man, or what?”

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed, dead serious, “Shut up. I’m trying to feel the music.”

“If you have to _try_ , you’re doing it wrong. Here, move with me.” Lance swayed, slowly, Feet shuffling, slowly, in tune with the electric beat of the percussion, letting the waves of sound wash out any worries and fears, alcohol humming at the edges of his mind. 

Keith bit his lip in concentration and Lance wanted to kiss him. Together, they swayed - willows in the wind, the lines between hand and hip and shoulder blurred, bodies so close they could feel each other’s pounding heart, almost hear the thoughts - buzzing like drones. Together, they swayed, surrounded by murderers in twenty-four karat, rosebushes and wealth looming high above the neon and wires that stretched below them - a world away. Together, they swayed, and Lance saw Keith’s eyes glitter like the city he knew _so_ well, saw the future in those purple-black eyes, saw what his life was now and what it could be. He saw Keith smiling, his real smile, the one that crinkled his eyes, the one that hid the tips of his teeth. 

Lance laughed, freely, truly, circling ‘round the rooftop, lights low. The world faded into obscurity and the only moment that existed in time was this one, right now.

Lance always did feel that dancing with someone was the best way to get to know them.

When the music ended, shifted to a mellow rendition of Yousef Lateef’s _Eastern Sounds_ , Keith and Lance stumbled back to the bar, laughter on their lips and stars in their eyes.

Lance gestured to the android bartender, he couldn’t care about her purple skin while he felt so high. “Two tonic waters,” he requested, settling his elbow on the glass surface, turning to face Keith. 

“Was that your first slow dance?” Lance exhaled, his heart still racing. Despite the slow, mellow swaying of the music and the rhythm, his pulse skyrocketed, the alcohol buzzing within him.

Keith nodded, his carefully gelled hair sticking up in spikes. “My first ever dance with someone else,” he admitted.

Lance blinked in surprise, “You’re kidding.”

Keith shook his head. “Never had the occasion. My dad wasn’t big on dancing, and Shiro and I were too busy trying to stay alive.”

“Well, shit - there’s no going back now. I guess I’ve led you astray. In like, five years, I’m gonna see a poster advertising “Keith’s Jazzersize Funky Rhythm Workout”, or some shit like that. You’ll be wearing a little tight spandex and legwarmers. And it’ll be my fault.”

Keith laughed out loud, a hint of disbelief and a tinge of “oh, shit, _maybe_ ” in his voice. He sipped the tonic water slowly. 

“So you lived alone pretty much your entire life, huh?” Lance asked. He knew nothing about Keith - and he couldn’t help but feel hungry to unravel more and more.

“Yeah. Just me and my dad. Studio apartment in Chinatown. He was a security guard, or something. I didn’t know him well. Disappeared for weeks on end. When he vanished for good - well. It took me a long time to get… back to life. I owe my soul to Shiro and his dad,” his gaze drifted elsewhere, lost down the aisle of forlorn memories and dirty walls. Keith’s voice got higher when he spoke more words at a time. The gritty, low quality it usually had disappeared.

Lance hummed in response, “How come you and Shiro ended up alone?”

“Leukemia. His dad passed a year after I met them - that’s, what, five years ago? Then it was just us. Shiro had to quit the Garrison, get a job. I got a job working in some run-down bodega. It was rough.”

“Wait, Shiro was in the Garrison?”

Keith nodded, “Top of his class. I applied. Rejected. Apparently having no medical records will do that to you.”

“What about you? Have you ever lived alone?” Keith asked, fingering the rim of his shot glass.

“No,” Lance snorted, “I have lived in many things, but solitude is not one of them.”

Keith angled his head, listening.

“I grew up in the smallest apartment in the universe with five siblings and a single mother. All of my siblings were fully related, but my mom had me with some douchebag that couldn’t be bothered with the inconvenience of having a kid. So I never really knew my dad.” Lance sighed, “I was loved, though. My mom nearly ran herself into the ground trying to take care of us. I joined the Garrison because I thought it would make her proud.”

He smiled bitterly, “That went well.”

Keith looked puzzled - “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You seemed to have turned out well. I think your mom would be proud of her son - the usurper.”

Lance blinked in surprise. That compliment from this particular person was not something he expected to hear. Not that he wasn’t grateful, however. He opened his mouth to respond, but the velvet voice of his newfound pseudo-friend rang from behind him.

“I saw you two… dancing,” Nyma purred, grabbing hold of Lance’s arm with the familiarity of an old, old friend. She smelled like champagne. Keith ordered more tonic waters. “What will your wife say?” she teased Lance, who blushed.

“It’s an… open relationship,” he stammered. Nyma giggled, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

“Hmm. The city is so beautiful at night,” she hummed, casting her artificial irises towards the glittering body of the city, alight with colors and sounds and life. She turned towards the rooftop, nudging Lance’s shoulder with her elegant hand, “Look over there, you see that man standing in the corner?”

Lance nodded. The man’s features were set - drawn together, his lips fixed in a tight line, grey hair slicked back. His shoulders were broad and his hands were clasped tightly behind his back. He scrutinized the room like a hawk, his gaze calm and penetrating. “Who’s he?”

“Captain of Galtech security for the last six years. You’d never know it by looking at him, but he’s one of the m4m0-r4 models. I hear they call him ‘Thace’.”

Lance shuddered, “Bots freak me out. They turn a pretty penny, but they’re endlessly creepy.”

“If androids make you uncomfortable, then you’ve invested in the wrong company, my friend,” Nyma quipped, and for the first time this night, Lance felt like he said the wrong thing.

“I mean, they’re useful as all hell. They’re just… too human for comfort,” he said, carefully.

“I get that,” Nyma replied, and Lance felt relieved. “Oh,” she said, “It’s almost eleven; finally - the grand ‘unveiling’ the execs’ve been teasing for _months_.” 

“Oh?” Lance glanced at his watch: 10:46. “It’s about time. What’d you think it’ll be?”

“My guess: a new model. That’s mostly wishful thinking on my part,” she sighed, “It’s been four years since a new release - all the bots you see on the streets are part of that series - g4lr4.” Lance nodded along in conversation. “They announced one along with the original,” Nyma continued, “but that was a flop. K-something. Waste of my money.”

“What’s the deal with the failed series?” Lance inquired, more out of politeness than curiosity. Talking about androids made him uncomfortable. 

“It was supposed to be ‘absolutely revolutionary’ - that was they way Cornelius pegged it. You know Zarkon?” Lance shook his head. “Oh, total douche. Him and his mistress, or whatever - the one with the white hair, you must’ve seen her around - they think they rule the world.”

“Well, they kinda do,” Lance murmured.

“And that’s why you and I are here. Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Anyhow, years later, we were still waiting around. No news or anything. Company just pretended like the announcement never happened in the first place. Stole my money and my time.”

“Bastards,” Lance cursed. “Hallelujah,” Nyma muttered. She glanced down quickly as her phone buzzed. Her brows were drawn together in puzzlement.

“What’d you say the name of that series was again?” Lance inquired, oblivious.

The universe had other plans - Keith frantically tapped Lance’s shoulder with quick, staccato beats before Nyma could respond. Lance whirled around to meet him, and was greeted by Keith’s pale face and worried eyes. “Lance, I need to talk to you.”

“Excuse me for a second,” Lance smiled at Nyma who gestured for them to go.

Keith hurriedly led Lance to the white hallway that housed the elevator. The glass door slid shut, the murmur of the party muffled behind it. 

“You don’t look so good, man. What’s going on?” Lance raised his palms in a defensive gesture, moving towards Keith, who was pacing furiously. Keith shoved his watch in Lance’s face, the unexpectedly bright screen flashing in Lance’s retina.

Familiar letters fizzed on the face of the watch. Lance groaned.

“Not this shit again,” he sighed, running his hand over his face. 

“I know,” Keith said curtly. “We knew it wasn’t about Shiro, or Pidge’s brother - but this means that whatever’s ‘stolen’ is still out there. And Galtech's still searching.”

“Wait, how can you even get the message? Your watch isn’t decked out with gadgets.”

“I don’t know. Look outside. I think… I think everyone is getting it.” Lance switched on his watch, whose screen quickly faded to black. ‘STOLEN’ flickered and glitched on the smooth surface. The two looked through the glass door and saw a man checking his phone - he held up the device and showed it to his friend. Mirror images all throughout the rooftop, spreading like a forest fire or the flu.

“I’m sick of this shit, man!” Lance ruffled his hair in frustration, “Why can’t anything ever be simple?” He kicked the air.

“Shh,” Keith hushed him, “do you hear that?”

“No?”

“The music’s stopped.”

They looked at each other. “What time is it?” Keith asked hastily. Lance looked at his watch, greeted only by the stolen letters. He groaned, and the two ran towards the door.

When they re-entered the rooftop, a hologram projection of a man Lance assumed to be Cornelius Zarkon floated on a raised platform near the edge of the roof. A woman with long, straight white hair stood at the hologram’s side, dressed in a sleek black dress. Her face showed signs of age, but she was still stunningly beautiful. The look in her eyes could penetrate stone.

The crowd of billionaires and murderers gathered around the woman and the projection, their hunger and anticipation palpable. Lance caught sight of Nyma, who waved at him and gestured for them to join her. She stood next to a tall man with straw-blond hair and a drooping nose.

“My husband, Jack,” Nyma whispered, cocking her head to the man beside her.

“Call me Rolo,” the man said, and offered his large hand. 

“Nice to meet you, Rolo, my name’s L - Dorsett,” Lance shook the man’s hand, “This is my… partner, Sean.”

Rolo settled into silence, eyes cast towards the hologram.

“ _Husband_?” Lance whispered towards Nyma. 

“It’s an open relationship,” she whispered back, smirking slightly. 

“What’d we miss?” Keith asked, intensely. Lance blinked - he didn’t think he wanted anything to do with Nyma. Not unless she had use, he supposed. 

“Nothing much. A speech about how valuable we investors are and how we’re going to change the world,” Nyma muttered.

The steel-tinged voice of the hologram cut through the crowd like a blade. “We at Gal Technology and Enterprises are honored to celebrate the genius and good will of our investors tonight. To thank you all for your continued, unwaveringly, valuable beyond compare support, we have prepared a window into the future here at Galtech,” Zarkon droned, his voice simultaneously insincere and frightening. Here was the voice behind the evil, the invisible hand controlling the distortion of the world, casting a blindfold over the masses - seducing them with war-borne peace and rooftop parties.

Keith felt hatred underneath his fingertips.

The woman’s voice rose over the crowd, her harsh inflection contrasting with her sharp, beautiful face. “We are utterly _delighted_ to announce,” she paused for effect, soaking in the crowd’s tension and anticipation, “a new series of Galtech branded android models - the r0-b34-st category.” 

The crowd clapped thunderously, a few whoops echoed out above the expanse of the city. 

Nyma looked at Lance. ‘What’d I tell you’, her gaze said.

The man Lance had seen before - Thace - and a few other men Lance assumed to be androids carried out a wheeled platform covered in a gray silk sheet. ‘Human’ figures were visible underneath, the sheet concealing their features and amplifying the crowd’s suspense.

The androids each reached for a corner of the sheet and for a split-second, Lance thought he saw a grimace flash on Thace’s features. 

The crowd gasped, some in shock, others in delight. On the platform stood three violet-tinged children, about six years old each - eyes blank and deactivated, soft, beautiful faces expressionless and eerie. Purity, innocence and youth in machine form - to be exploited and used and purchased without a second thought.

Lance felt the air rush out of his lungs and felt the fire beneath his fingernails.

. . .

> “Maybe humankind was meant to be sick from time to time. Maybe there is something to be learned from illness.”  
>  \- Tade Thompson

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the people expressing interest in theorizing: let me just say, holy shit, thank you, and there's a lot to dissect in this chapter ;)
> 
> thanks for reading! sorry for the delay again, i'll try to update by next thursday to get back on normal schedule


	6. Blood Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you have to slap life across the cheek and take destiny for yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually meant to be included with the previous one, so it's a little bit of a baby in that respect. Things are heating up, though! Hearts are beating, plots are thickening, the works. Once again, thanks for reading :)
> 
> EDIT: so like, three weeks later, I PROMISE I'M NOT DEAD. there will be an update within a week of today (8/4/17) as well as any s3 fics i feel the need to write. thanks for your patience

CHAPTER SIX: BLOOD MONEY

Lance was about thirteen when his mother had his youngest sister. He didn’t really care about her - at that age, his interests never ventured beyond homemade fireworks and topsoil pH. His sister’s nose was too runny, her wails too loud, her vocabulary endlessly limited. 

But as he grew older, as his sister grew older, he started to understand the jewel that is a child’s mind. Nothing was impossible to them - and the fact that children retained that endless hope and unwavering trust in the world and the capabilities of mankind is what made them so special.

Lance thought of his little sister who genuinely thought she would receive a pet lion for Christmas when he saw the dead-doll eyes of the machine children. He thought of his sister’s irrational fear of quicksand, her love for bioluminescence and color as his stomach churned when the audience clapped with impressment and satisfaction.

He felt sick, fingers clumsily grasping for Keith’s shoulder to rest on - only to find it taut and trembling with fury. 

“Hmph. They’ll round up quite the fortune,” Nyma said under her breath, “Ought to get a model ourselves, right, love? Much more manageable than real children.”

Rolo nodded in agreement, “Finally, something actually promising after three years of fuckin’ radio silence.”

“K - Sean, can I speak to you for a moment,” Lance said, weakly. 

“Yeah. Be right back,” he muttered to Nyma and Rolo with vitriol and poison. His hands were set at his sides, shoulders rigid, brows drawn and jaw clamped. They headed towards the white hallway, seeking refuge from the detritus of humanity and the celebration of perversion. A few others, similarly affected - green in the gills - rushed to the haven of the hall. Lance suspected that these people were actually billionaires, as well. It was disconcerting to see that some of them had a heart. It made his anger harder to understand.

The air-conditioned chill of the hallway did nothing to chase the revulsion from their minds. Lance wiped his forehead, sickly pale with sweat and discomfort. Keith paced the width of the corridor, ignoring the others seeking a hasty escape.

“Kids, Keith! Fucking _kids_ ,” Lance nearly yelled, the tension in his voice palpable, his jugular rope-like in distress, “Sure, they’re not human kids, but do you know what some sicko with a few thousand bucks to spare is gonna do to them?” Lance panted, his anger and disgust sapping away his stamina.

“Yeah, I know. Everything they would do to human children if it wasn’t for the law,” Keith snarled.

“Labor, servitude, sex - whatever the _fuck_ they want.” Lance thought of his sister.

“Your friend didn’t seem to object,” Keith said, quietly.

“Yeah, well. Not many people did,” Lance said, his anger white-hot and low. Anger that ran deep, anger that disrupted the stability of the world around him, anger that threatened to strike.

“Fuck this place,” Lance spat, “Fuck these people.” He buried micro-thoughts that taunted him - told him that he was weak for not seeing past the veneer, poisoned for enjoying the allure of wealth and glamor and pure and utter fraudulence. 

“I want to leave,” Keith demanded. He was always so sure of himself, Lance thought with a tinge of irritation. 

“ _Dude_ ,” Lance glanced at his pockets, “the chip,” he whispered. 

Keith crossed his arms and fixed his glare. 

“That's, like, the second-to-first part of going to this damn thing! We can't forget tha-” Lance’s watched hummed abruptly, halting his scolding objection. He pressed the small knob that turned it on - and the stolen letters appeared like lightning. He stared at those letters in silence, the cogs in his mind slowly twisting, the strings unraveling. 

“Oh, shit,” he whispered. 

“What?” Keith snapped. His patience was wearing thin, he drew his shoulders closer to himself, wanting to isolate his being, decontaminate his body from the lies and avarice and injustice that stained the air like a plague.

“The message - the-the-the stolen thing. I just got it again. _I've_ never gotten it before, it's always been Hunk and Pidge with their fancy gadgets and whoozits and ducking whatever. But now, _now of all the fucking times in the world_ , this goddamn night, I get the message. Why? Does it have something to do with those robo-kids?” Lance ranted furiously, spouting ideas like a leaking pipe, wracking his brain for connections and clues that he never trusted himself to ponder. He was never really the brains, he told himself. 

Keith’s brows furrowed, drawn deep in concentration. “Were those kids stolen from someone?”

“They weren't stolen, they were _made_ ,” Lance replied. 

“Made from what?”

Lance shrugged, “I don't know, carbon-fiber or metal or whatever Pidge told us in that room. Why? What are you suggesting?” 

“I'm _suggesting_ that this new model and the timing of the message’s flare-ups are connected. And that we gotta find whatever’s been stolen, fast. Whoever’s sending the message is getting antsy, broadcasting it to so many people,” Keith cast his eyes towards the crowd outside, shoulders tight and posture drawn like a springboard. 

“I just - I don't understand, man. I don't wanna be in the dark anymore,” Lance exclaimed, his face red with frustration. Keith raised an eyebrow, calmly. 

“Join the club,” he said in his hot, low voice, “I've been getting this thing my entire life. Imagine how I feel,” he scoffed, “And I was so close.”

Lance shoved his hands in his pockets. “It just creeps me out, you know? Like, who the hell has the guts to steal something from _these_ guys - and why do they want it back so bad?” He glanced out the door, a group of people gathered, all comparing the matching messages, collective hauntings on their phones and watches. “Really bad,” he muttered. 

“The message is an afterthought right now,” Keith exhaled, reaching his palm to his forehead, “We have to focus on what's in front of us - this moment is the only thing that matters, okay? What're we gonna do about those kids?”

Lance grit his teeth. “They're not announced to public yet, right?”

Keith shook his head, “No. Sneak peek, remember? I'm not sure if they'll ever get announced,”

“Oh, they'll get announced,” Lance rubbed his index, middle and thumb together, “Are you kidding me - child labor, servants for fuckin’ _whatever_ \- who don't talk back and aren't protected under the law? They'll get announced.”

“Okay. Well, we got what came for, in the very least,” Keith said. He began to pace across the wide white hallway, hair undone and face haggard. 

“Yeah. We just have to wait ‘til this place clears out and then… you know.”

Keith looked at Lance, straight in the eye, midnight fire and violet precision, unwavering focus and fortitude and ruthless determination sending shivers down Lance’s spine. 

“Let's do it. _Now_. I wanna get out of this place.”

“I - what? Now? Are you insane? Do you have a death wish?” Lance sputtered, “This place is near building capacity - every rich asshole in the entire city’s here, man. We’ll get spotted for sure.”

Keith didn't break eye contact. 

“No _way_ ,” Lance shook his head furiously, “No. I don't wanna die, remember that?”

Keith shrugged, “We could probably do it,” cool and calm. When Lance was angry, it was mostly expressed in minor violence and extreme passive aggression, only to die down a feat minutes later and fade into the white-blank of the past. But Keith, his temper didn't flare in violence or destruction; it was rather a beam of molten, target, exquisitely crafted hatred - dangerous, deadly, but never volatile. 

Lance stared at Keith with confusion and tatters of anger, “We have a plan. A plan that's our best shot of staying alive. There's no reason to jeopardize everything we have because… because, shit, I don't know why!”

“Look. Look at those children. I know you don't like androids, and I'm not a fan either, but you can't deny that their _minds_ are human. They're programmed to think like people. Are these bots programmed to think like kids? Do they feel things like kids?” Keith pressed on, “When these bots are being worked to death until their exoskeleton shows, are they gonna think like children? When some old creep buys a model to do whatever the _hell_ he wants, how are these kids gonna feel? I don't care if they're made of metal - they're made to think like people, if these models are like any other bot.”

Lance looked down at his feet. 

“And you're gonna tell me that you're going to go back into that snake-pit and pretend to think this is the greatest idea in the world? To protect your image, I guess. To impress Nyma. To play their game.” Keith shook his head, palms raised. “I'm leaving. Give me the chip. If you're not gonna do it, I am. Your choice.”

Lance considered himself to be adventurous. Daring. He told himself that he would grab life by the horns, riding into the sunset surrounded by excitement and the thrilling taste of lightning-fun on the tip of his tongue. He told himself this because he hated the idea of being a man who lived life straight, followed the rules, drifted through ranks and success through obedience and ass-kissing. He hated the idea of being normal, in some respects. He hated the idea of a vanilla-white life, happy but never fulfilled, never fun. 

He, of course, told himself a lie. Lance never wanted to face the truth - that he actually liked rules. They kept people safe, they kept people alive. 

It was hard - coming to the realization that rules governed his mind and life and he was completely and utterly complacent. It was even harder facing the fact that he would never abide by the rules again that spring night in the flower-pink hallway.

Nothing was as hard, however, as feeling the word, “Okay,” slip out of his mouth like his dying breath and feeling his feet walk him to his white-walled grave that smelled like lies and money and sex. The wire-veins tightened around his throat and the violet-tinged skin of the false children shimmered behind his eyes. 

Keith smiled at him, slightly. Lance imagined fangs. “The ‘stat we want is on the 93rd floor. You with me?” the stranger said, and Lance blinked like he was underwater. 

“Yeah,” Lance said, slowly, “yeah. I am. I can’t manage those snakes much longer. Nyma, I can’t believe it. And here I was just starting to see them as human.”

“You remember the drill?”

“A classic.”

“Good. Elevator should be here in a few.”

Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulder with force and Keith stared at him with uncertainty. “Those kids. I keep seeing them,” Lance’s voice was raw with emotion. “I’m scared… I’m going to die.” Keith looked at Lance, confusion forming pause on his face. He touched Lance’s hand slowly, carefully, tenderly. “It’ll be okay, Lance,” he said quietly.

The near-silent hum of the elevator broke the air and Keith turned to face it, stepping in almost immediately. Lance hesitated and he saw the purple-skinned bellboy waiting patiently. He entered, his heart beating slow. This didn’t feel right, it deviated from the plan, the plan there to keep them from getting _killed_ \- the faces of those fake children made of wires and metal, built to be exploited, floated in Lance’s mind. He felt lost at sea, caught between the tides of choice and fate.

He kept his eye on the floors whooshing past. They had reached floor 94 when Lance exclaimed, loudly to the elevator, “You know what? I think… I’m gonna take a leak before we head back home, is that alright?” He turned his attention to the bellboy, “Is there a bathroom on this floor?”

The bellboy bit his lip, “Not this one, but I can let you off at the next one down.”

“Perfect, thank you,” Lance murmured. God bless blueprints. 

The bellboy nodded in response. For the brief interlude between floors, Lance wondered why Galtech - inheritors of the city government, the most powerful company in the country - still used bellboys. Lance supposed it was a means to show off their purple-shimmering minions in the flesh(?). Or, they were trying to evoke a sense of old-fashioned, vintage class, conjure up some distant memory of ancient grandeur to mask their twenty-first century veneer rotten with corruption and immoral disgrace.

The number ‘93’ glowed with white-blue light and the doors to the elevator slid open silently, the clean white maw of the hallway stretched before them. The bellboy bode goodnight, and Lance and Keith exited the glass elevator, which once again began its eternal descent-ascent-descent along the spine of the great building.

“Nothing makes you feel more like a badass super-spy than the old bathroom trick, huh?” Lance quipped, dryly. Keith chuckled meekly in response, too busy glancing around the hallway for the slightly raised surface that signified the presence of the thermostat that made the ninety-third floor noteworthy. He pointed out the bump to Lance, who strode over, fiddling with the small red circle in between his thumb and his index.  
He felt the smooth walls - the blueprints Pidge drew from the Internet told him the approximate whereabouts of the thermostat, but translating 2D into 3D was a little more difficult. Lance found the raised portion - itself barely more than a centimeter above the rest of the unblemished face - and pressed the center with two fingers. The screen lit up like a projection - displaying the cool 70º of the interior.

“Good,” Keith whispered, eyes darting back and forth frantically, “Hurry up. We get caught, there’s no telling what’s gonna happen.”

“I know,” Lance hissed, “I goddamn know.”

“So what’s taking you so long?”

Lance grit his teeth in frustration, “There’s a tiny, tiny slot for ‘emergency induction’. I can’t… I can’t find it.”

Keith rolled his eyes, “You can’t be serious,” he huffed. Lance stared at him with a half-lidded eyes and a blank expression. “Oh my god, you’re serious.”

“Can you come over and help me? Four hands are better than two,” Lance pleaded, his voice strained. His fingers trembled with anxiety - his brain a muddled puddle of fear and worry. He didn’t even bother trying to calm down - he thought the adrenaline would do him some good.

“Then who’ll be on lookout?” Keith asked impatiently.

“It’ll be two seconds - for Christ’s sake, we’re wasting time. Get over here,” Lance commanded, the irritation in his voice like a drill sergeant.

Keith scoffed in disbelief, maintaining the aloof persona and absent demeanor that was really starting to get on Lance’s nerves. Nonetheless, he quietly stepped towards where Lance was angrily stroking the face of the thermostat. Keith reached his right arm out, sighing heavily, feeling the sharp, slight corners of the raised surface. 

“The hole’s right _here_ , idiot - in the exact corner Pidge said it would be,” Keith seethed, snatching the chip out of Lance’s hands and forcefully shoving it into the port. The red circle flashed briefly, signifying its online status and the fact that the two could once again see the light of day. 

Lance grinned sheepishly, his mouth opened in sharp-witted response - only to be interrupted by the low voice bellowing, “ _Hey_!” down the vacuous hallway. Keith’s eyes widened and Lance heard his heartbeat in his ears. The bright blue eyes of the door guard, deadly aquamarine, shone clearly in the minimal white walls of the corridor. 

“The _fuck_ are you doing to that thermostat, huh?” she growled from the opposite end of the long, long hallway - pure white like the halls of heaven. 

“Holy fuck, Keith - run. _Run_!” Lance shoved Keith, hard, ice-cold pooling in his insides, spreading slowly through his veins like hoarfrost. Keith broke into a sprint, one eye on the charging security guard, fists raised - he always expected someone to jump him at any moment, his nerves were hard and frayed - struck by neon and lightning one too many times - and because of them he survived in the deepest bowels of the city. 

“Elevator, _elevator_ ,” Lance yelped. Keith hurriedly pressed the button a thousand times more than necessary - but was well rewarded as the elevator slid down the glass spinal cord. 

The doors opened too slowly, it seemed, and the two burst into the elevator like charging bulls, fire and fear radiating off them. Lance jammed the door shut with the touch of a button and Keith punched the bellboy square in the throat, knocking him to the ground. Lance nearly broke his finger pressing the 50th floor button - the closet floor with an accessible fire escape. 

“Go, go, go, go, God _damn_ it,” Keith hissed as the security guard banged on the glass shaft with her baton. The elevator slowly slid down towards freedom and Lance bit off the tip of his fingernail in anxiety. 

“Fire escape. To the left down the hall, then a sharp right, okay? Thirty seconds is all we got ‘til we’re outside,” Keith panted, “Got it? Thirty seconds.”

Lance nodded, shoulders heaving, eyes tracking the blinking numbers detailing the elevator’s descent - 63, 62, 61. 

He glanced at the incapacitated bellboy, blackened bruise from Keith’s blow already obvious on his neck. “Is he gonna be a problem?”

Keith shook his head, “Nothing a mechanic can't fix. Bots are better to break than bones,” he stared at his unblemished right knuckle, still throbbing from the impact. No blood or bruise, thought. He supposed he was just lucky. 

Lance hit Keith’s shoulder, immediately getting his attention, “Fifty, man. Fuck. _Run_.”

__The bolted out the doors, veering left down a hallway identical to the ninety-third, wide white walls like a prison. Lance’s heels hit the ground hard, blood coursing through his veins hot like fire, heart pumping at the speed of sound. He pointed towards the small neon sign - the words ‘FIRE EXIT’ endlessly comforting._ _

__“There,” he panted. He pushed through the doors like a battering ram, no mercy allotted for the smooth glass that stood between him and freedom. He nearly lost his balance on the thin platform made of entwined cords that led to a flimsy ladder fifty stories above the concrete._ _

__He swallowed his nerves and his heartbeat and stepped onto the ladder - that acted as the veil between life and death, it seemed. The ladder groaned under his weight, and Keith whispered, “ _Hurry_ ,” with utmost anxiety. _ _

__“I'm going, I'm going,” Lance gasped - climbing down as fast as physics could let him, hands barely pausing to consider the ladder, heartbeat barrorsting his descent like background music. Keith followed closely after and the ladder creaked with gusto. They climbed into the inky blank below, white lights echoing up from the well-manicured bushes like lighthouses, the silence of this neighborhood of affluence and secrets a stark contrast to the never-ending sounds of the southern city._ _

__It felt like a century later when Lance’s heels reached the concrete. He hid in the shadows, Keith close behind, security guards patrolling the area like wasps._ _

__“Where to?” he mouthed at Keith, who pointed towards the harbor. Lance nodded, silently stepping west - the harbor had seen it’s share of city violence and the endless grime and dirt and neon that clouded the south._ _

__The walked like mice, careful, fast, dead quiet in-between the searching beams of guards. Lance wondered why the security was so lax - Galtech HQ was equipped with heat-sensing cameras and cybernetically enhanced dogs - why wouldn't their biggest event in three years be any different?_ _

__Lance shrugged off the shroud of unease and counted his lucky stars, grateful for the chance to be alive and breathing. He and Keith reached the threshold of Galtech property, and with a heavy sigh of relief, broke into a run - a flight towards the ocean before them._ _

__Together, they ran underneath the haughty lights of the wealthy, the sweet taste of lies and fluttering hearts heady on their tongues, the looming cloud of a stolen message and the fates of a hundred child-machines a heavy burden on their young, young shoulders.__

__. . ._ _

__  
Lance’s lungs burned - the dry rasping tongue of exhaustion scratched at his trachea. He doubled over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Keith’s laughed echoed behind him.  
  


__“You son of a _bitch_ ,” Lance wheezed, “you cheated.” Keith scoffed, hardly out of breath, standing tall and upright - looming like a giant before Lance’s panting form. _ _

__“ _Please_ ,” Keith said, “You brought this on yourself.” _ _

__Somewhere along the neon-bright path twisting around the white high-rises that smelled like roses and secrets, their flee from the claws of failure, capture, the future of unspeakable torture turned into a foot race. Borne of competition and adrenaline, the two men bolted for an imaginary finish line, away and further away from the maw of corporate prison and towards the future and the rest of their dynamite-filled, gasoline-stained lives._ _

__Keith stared out at the bay, the ocean glittering pink and green and bright yellow, reflecting the neon signage of the warehouses behind him. The sea-salt breeze tousled his hair, kissed his tired eyes. The high-pitched choir of the fluorescent tubing rang behind him, the hum of the ocean air punctuated by the growl of cars and the steady huff of Lance’s recovering lungs._ _

__“What now?” Keith asked, and he couldn’t help but feel his question scratch at the edges of existentialism. What now indeed._ _

__“I’ll call Allura,” Lance said, once again standing at his full height, face still red like a cherry tomato. “She’ll send me the fare for the next train.”_ _

__“Bullets run this late at night?”_ _

__“It’s only midnight-thirty. But yeah, every hour or so. We get time ‘til the next one comes.”_ _

__Keith nodded. “What’re we going to do until then?”_ _

__“We’re like sitting ducks just standing here. Station?”_ _

__“And risk loitering around those Galtech police bots for the next thirty minutes? No.”_ _

__Lance shrugged, his brain still hummed with the lingering taste of lies and money and adrenaline. He felt Keith’s waist underneath his fingertips and heard the sound of his laugh rising above the deep burgundy music._ _

__Keith looked around. The docks were practically empty, some warehouses inhabited only by the high-out-of-their mind junkies experimenting with whatever new synthetic drug found its way into their veins that night. His eyes fell upon one of the higher buildings, windows dark, doors boarded up. Lance followed his gaze and his expression fell._ _

__“No. _No_ , okay? Holy shit, how many illegal things are we going to do tonight?” Lance sputtered. Keith didn’t say anything, just started walking towards the abandoned warehouse._ _

__Lance looked towards the ocean, dark deep and blue like his eyes. “Can you believe this guy?” he said to it. It did not respond._ _

__Lance sighed, heavily, and followed Keith towards the building._ _

__“At least let me kick it,” Lance deadpanned. Keith shrugged. Lance did indeed kick it, kicked it _hard_ with his right foot, and the old wooden doors burst open in a cloud of dust and cobwebs._ _

__“How old is this thing,” Lance said, coughing from the dust that stuck to the insides of his throat._ _

__“I dunno, 2010s or thereabouts?” Keith said, “I don’t really care. But look,” he pointed to a rusted ladder stretching towards a clear-cut rectangular hole in the roof, dust drifting in moonlight beams, “jackpot.” He didn’t hesitate in hoisting himself up the ladder, paying no heed to the rusted metal and dubious footing._ _

__“Oh? We’re going to the roof now?” Lance inquired dryly._ _

__“Yup,” Keith said as Lance watched his body disappear into the hole._ _

__“Can’t we ever go anywhere nice?” Lance said, sarcastically, as he grabbed hold of the ladder’s sides. Keith stared down at him from the roof, his hair falling around his face - pulled by gravity - an expression of utter vacancy clear across his features._ _

__“Sure, the decor was nice,” Lance replied, steadily climbing up the ladder, wary of cuts or sharpness, “but we almost _died_.”_ _

__He climbed onto the roof. “And now, I think I’m _actually_ going to die - from tetanus,” he groaned, laying down flat on the tarp-covered surface._ _

__“There’s shots for that,” Keith said quietly, his back facing Lance, his eyes towards the ocean. Lance cocked his head, rising to join him._ _

__“It’s going to be hard, telling Shiro and the rest about the kids,” Keith sighed._ _

__“Yeah. I wonder what our next game plan is, or whatever the hell we’re doing.”_ _

__Keith’s midnight gaze turned hard, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m hitting that facility. Storage, processing, whatever. Those kids can’t ship out. And then I’m going to find out what this message means - I’m sick of being haunted.”_ _

__Lance nodded, “Can’t blame you.”_ _

__“I never believed in ghosts, anyway,” Keith scoffed. Lance hummed. He believed in ghosts. He lived his whole life thinking the tainted stain of his dead-or-something father haunted him, followed him like a shadow, doomed him to the same fate of a man he never met. Yes, Lance believed in ghosts._ _

__“What’re you lookin’ at?” he asked softly, after a while, placing his hand lightly on Keith’s shoulder._ _

__“Nothing. The ocean,” Keith said, his voice hardly louder than a whisper._ _

__“Oh yeah? And what’d you see?”_ _

__“Emptiness. It’s cold up north. Freedom.”_ _

__Lance sighed, “Yeah, that ocean’ll take you far, _far_ away from this shithole I call home.”_ _

__Keith laughed lightly, “It is a shithole. But at least you have a home.”_ _

__Lance looked at Keith, “It’s your home, too.”_ _

__Keith shook his head, “No. Not really.”_ _

__“Uh, yeah? You’ve lived here your whole life, right?”_ _

__“Sure, I’ve lived here. More like _existed_. But homes are supposed to be places where you grow up, right? Places where you can feel safe, know you’re… loved, cared for. Places that love you as much as you love them,” he shook his head again, “No. This city isn’t home.”_ _

__“Hey, it’s not too late to learn to love it, right?” Lance grinned, stars in his smile. “I’ll teach you.”_ _

__Keith smiled too - slower, smaller. “That’d be fun.”_ _

__“You bet your ass it is. I make everything fun,” Lance laughed._ _

__“That’s for sure,” Keith chuckled. The two sat for a moment, silent, watching the neon bend and twist underneath the waves. The ocean was so vast, so wide, seldom but the ghosts of the lights of the city were visible - looking at the bottomless water, Lance could almost pretend the thick of concrete and wire, secrets and lies, roses and neon - didn’t even exist; that the world was just deep blue ocean as far as the eye could see._ _

__“Hey Lance,” Keith murmured, “Are you okay?”_ _

__Lance sighed deeply, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I mean - I seriously thought I would freaking die. It’s hard, you know, having this - this rush of thoughts like ‘Did I do _anything_ right?’, or ‘Was my life even worth it?’. It’s hard having to face your… regrets, your past with honesty. With the sincerity of a marked man. It’s hard.”_ _

__Keith said nothing, just crossed his arms and stared into the watery abyss alight with the neon glow of the city behind him._ _

__“But, shit. I’m alive, I’m here, I’m breathing. I guess it turned out well in the end?” Lance said to the sky. Even though he didn’t see any stars - masked by the man-made veil that always shrouded their light - he knew they were still there._ _

__“And?”_ _

__“And what?”_ _

__“Do you regret?” Keith said, almost silently._ _

__Lance’s pulse echoed in his ear canal, his heart beat in his throat. “I think… I’m going to regret this.”_ _

__He tightened his grip around Keith’s shoulder, drawing the other man’s body closer to his, as close as they were on the dance floor surrounded by the sickly sweet thorns of the rosebushes. He leaned his head in, eyes closed, fingertips tingling. His lips brushed Keith’s as light as a feather, Lance’s mind was blank and buzzing at the same time._ _

__Keith’s hand was firm on his chest as he pushed Lance away._ _

__“We’re going to miss our train,” he said softly, averting his midnight violet eyes from the blank stare on Lance’s face. Keith looked out at the ocean, his own pulse steady - it always was, it never faltered. He wished the ocean goodnight and walked towards the rusted ladder, back towards the city of lost souls and neon lights, the city he knew would never be home.__

__. . ._ _

> __“She blew a light and watched a fire start. They would never leave her, now. I have no mouth, the city thought as she went to sleep, but I could kiss you.”  
>  ― Jason Heller, Cyber World: Tales of Humanity’s Tomorrow_ _

__. . ._ _

__  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is also unbeta'd, so if there are any glaring mistakes, i'd love to hear them. and shoutout to all the lovely people in the comments who leave me theories and compliments and conversation, thank you all so much, you really make me smile.


	7. Hikunuki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hikunuki (Japanese): To kidnap from a corporation. Lit. "to extract."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im ALIIIIIVE. actually, that depends on the definition of 'alive' because school just started and everything hurts.
> 
> guys, im so sorry for the wait. god, life has been hectic. BUT! im back on track, things are stable. however, because, i'm a full-time student right now, i think im going to have to increase the time between updates to two weeks. but i promise ill get back on a normal schedule (ie every other thursday i update)
> 
> thank you all so much for your continued support. i really missed reading your comments every week, and im so grateful that anyone is willing to read this at all, haha

CHAPTER SEVEN: HIKUNUKI

The train ride south was pierced by the occasional com-message warning about the closing doors, a passing car, the shudder of the stations. Keith’s shoulder were tense, his eyes alert - on the lookout for any threat or suspicion. Lance stayed in silence, red in the face, stomach churning from alcohol and fear and… regret.

He didn’t know why he did it. He did it because he wanted to, because he had enough sense to know it was right - and too little to stop himself. He just wanted to go home, he wanted to forget the midnight-violet eyes of the stranger with the knife, he wanted to forget revolution and fire and change. He wanted to go back to the false, lying sense of normalcy he and millions of others coveted like gold.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice told him that that wasn’t right.

Lance closed his eyes, leaning his clammy forehead against the cool glass of the train car. His half-lidded eyes only caught some of the bright colors and dimly lit windows of the city rushing by. Keith stared straight ahead, expression blank and posture taught. Lance sighed. He wished he were asleep. 

The train moved along at what seemed like light-speed, completely silent, a surprising amount of passengers on board so late at night. The train swerved and the people’s heads swayed in sync, each movement exactly the same out of no one’s volition but gravity.

Lance looked at Keith.

_Why did he do it?_

Keith didn’t look back.

Lance cupped his face in his hands, regret weighing down his limbs like stones. The tension was so thick Lance knew he could cut it with a knife.

Lance groaned, quietly, to himself. He turned to Keith.

“C’mon, man. What’re you feeling? Talk to me,” Lance said - pleaded, almost.

Keith stared at Lance, biting his lip slightly and saying nothing. 

“Look,” Lance inhaled, his forehead felt clammy, his hands shook, “I’m sorry. I - I don’t know what I was thinking. Fuck, I wasn’t thinking.”

Keith nodded, “Okay.”

“And? And are we still cool - can we just… never talk about this again?”

“Yeah, sure,” Keith said, returning his gaze to the seats in front of them.

Lance wrinkled his brow in confusion. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You don’t wanna… talk about it?”

Keith sighed, once again fixing his violet gaze hard like diamond towards Lance. “Lance, I’m focused on other things. _Lots_ of other things. Galtech - those _kids_ \- that can’t stand,” his voice broke, “They remind me of Shiro” he steeled himself, eyes returning to the hard stare like rough diamonds - they normally carried. “I know what I need to do, and some sort of tryst in the middle of everything isn’t that. No hard feelings.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I’m serious. No hard feelings.”

“Alright. Okay,” Lance replied, weakly, not quite sure what to say. He looked at the window and tried with every bone in his body not to take it personal. Sometimes he couldn't help but feel like everyone in his life was trying to distance themselves from him - get as far away as possible. He knew it was selfish and stupid, but it was often difficult to retain any sense of self-awareness when he slipped into the mindset that told him the entire world never wanted him in the first place. 

The lights of the city in the window turned into long, thin, colorful lines from the speed of the train. He thought of how soft Keith’s lips were, the touch the brush of a feather, he felt Keith’s hand pushing him away and felt the stone drop in his insides. So _fucking_ typical, he thought to himself, angrily. Impulse was Lance’s best friend and worst enemy, it led him to places he always dreamed he would have the guts to go - but when he finally arrived, he would be forced to come to the realization that he wasn't meant to be the man he wanted to be. 

Risk was enticing and beautiful on paper. Lance was never prepared to deal with the reality of it all. 

He caught a glimpse of Keith’s dark midnight hair from his periphery and cursed himself for the millionth time. 

The rest of the ride was spent in hot silence, humid like the seaside air.

. . .

The bunker was stale and stagnant. Allura was curled up on her chair, eyes closed and white hair, light pink in the magenta light, strewn across her lips. Coran rested in the corner of the room, head leaning on his shoulder, moving up and down with his steady breath. Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge were nowhere to be seen. Keith and Lance entered slowly, warily and wearily. Lance’s shirt was unbuttoned and his eyelids hung heavy. He had to fight to keep them up. Keith kept rubbing his face with his hand. Lance suspected it was an attempt to wake himself up.

“Honey, I’m home,” Lance said - groaned, more like. Allura startled awake, her piercing blue cybernetics reminded Lance of the security guard. He shuddered at the thought of rosebushes and Nyma, Rolo, the bellboy. The party guests. He figured it was best not to think of them at all. They weren’t human, not really - the metal bodies of some and the heartless husks of others, others who never dared to defy protocol, programming, proved as much. 

_One step away, huh?_ Lance thought for a miserable split-second, forcing the poison to the back of his alcohol-fettered mind.

“Lance, Keith,” Allura gasped, softly, “you’re back.”

“Both of us - in the flesh,” Lance grinned, weakly. 

“I’m so relieved,” she said, lightly hugging each of them, her lighting eyes shimmering in the low, low lights. Her smooth white hair smelled like linen. Lance blushed as he felt the warmth of her body against his. Lance raised an eyebrow at Keith’s stiff expression when Allura hugged him - his body was rigid like metal. “That whole time waiting, it felt like… I was being eaten away by acid,” Allura exhaled, “I’ve got to tell the others - they’ve been worried sick, too. Coran!” she called, the excitement and relief in her voice obvious.

Coran’s head snapped up, his eyes-half lidded, mumbling incoherently. His eyes widened and his face brightened when he saw the two men with disheveled hair and wrinkled suits. 

“Oh my goodness, you two made it,” he smiled, the lines around his eyes crinkling like aluminum foil. 

“Barely,” Lance grinned as Coran squeezed his shoulder, simultaneously doing the same to Keith - who looked at Coran’s freckled hand with caution.

“Wha-” Hunk yawned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes only to snap towards Lance’s side the moment he saw him like a rubber band. “Oh my God, you’re alive!” Hunk exclaimed, shaking Lance’s shoulders. Lance smiled back wildly - he was truly grateful to have a friend, steadfast among the absurdity that was now his life. Shiro hurried to Keith’s side, relief wrought across his face.

“We thought you had been captured!” Pidge said, “The chip came online for like, two seconds and then it just… vanished. I was _convinced_ you two had been taken, killed, tortured - Hunk was nearly in tears,” she added, side eying her friend - who was still shaking Lance’s frame with alleviation and excitement. Lance’s neck was beginning to ache.

“Correction - I _was_ in tears. But whatever. Are you going to tell us what happened? How’d you get away?” Hunk inquired, regaining his composure and letting go of Lance’s shoulders. He felt the ghost of Hunk’s palmprint on his skin, the vibration lingering. 

“It was… kind of weird. Now that I think about it, something felt off,” Lance frowned, familiar letters floating behind his eyelids, shut tight in thought. “The message. The one that kicked this thing off - it appeared again. Right before they made their announcement.”

“You mean… the stolen one,” Pidge said quietly.

“Yeah. That one. But what was strange was that… you know how only you and Hunk got that message to begin with? Because of your fancy watches? Well, Keith and I only had basic models and we still got it. Not just us. The whole damn room got the message two minutes before the announcement. No one seemed to do anything but gawk either. It was weird.” He shivered, “Like, why there? Why then? I can’t even begin to make sense of it.”

Hunk ruffled his hair in thought. He wondered what was stolen with iron eyes and a brain working overtime. _What was stolen_ , his mind whispered, _what was your chance at having a future_. He thought no more.

“Ugh,” Pidge muttered, “What the _hell_ does this thing even mean?” She rubbed her eyes underneath the LED lenses of her glasses. “What could be stolen? Technology, people? What; _what_?”

“Maybe an idea,” Shiro said quietly. “You know how they’re so strict about control of the android trade.”

Pidge nodded, chewing her lip slowly.

“I’m sorry to say I don’t know, either. But whatever’s stolen - whoever it was stolen from - wants it back. And they’re casting a wide, wide net to find it,” Allura said.

“Yeah, like the top-execs at a secret party _wide_. Anyway, after the announcement and the message and all that, We planted the chip - no big deal - we were found out by this guard who screamed at us and we just… we just ran away,” Lance frowned, the improbability of his escape dawning on him, slowly, fearfully. “Hell, of course I’m _grateful_ ; but it was strange. This is _Galtech_ , right? They’d ought to have the best security in the world and two people _suspected_ of a crime could just… run away.”

Keith nodded, “Yeah. And wasn’t the head of their security there too? The bot.”

Allura crossed her arms. “I won’t lie to you - that is… concerning. But I don’t know if I can think about that right now,” she sighed, “What was their announcement?”

Lance and Keith looked at each other. Lance felt a shudder run up his spine and Keith felt the anger swell inside him. Silence and tension swirled in the air.

“Children. Android children. For sale. On the market, meant for God-knows-what,” Lance bit out, finally. Hunk and Allura gasped, Coran’s brows were drawn in concern and Pidge remained stoic.

Shiro’s eyes widened, his shoulders visibly shaking. “Kids. I saw them. I saw what they did to them. Wires. There were dozens, maybe more, I-” he shuddered, doubled over, sweat gleaming on his brow, “I… I’m okay,” he said to Keith by his side, brimming with caution and care and anger.

“Children?” Allura whispered.

Lance and Keith nodded. Shiro exhaled shakily.

“That is… beyond messed up,” Hunk shivered, Pidge nodded. Coran sheltered his eyes behind his hand.

“It’s wrong. Pure evil. We can’t let them go on sale,” Keith spat, his brow drawn in scarlet determination and hot fury. “We can’t let this happen. I won’t allow it.” He felt his temper burn inside him. He hated being angry. He hoped it would pass, not fester underneath his skin for days like it sometimes did.

Allura looked around the room with uncertainty. “I’m… not sure, Keith. The only way to prevent the inevitable is to hit the production facility - the source - directly, and…”

“Fine. Good. Let’s do it,” Keith commanded, standing straight and tall. “I’ll turn the place to dust if I have to.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Allura warned, “Your escape from the party may have been lucky _at worst_ \- you have no idea what their main facility has in store.” She glared at him, but she felt the maelstrom of rage and vengeance churn under her skin as well. She couldn’t blame him for being angry. 

“I don’t care, Allura. This has to stop,” Keith looked up at Shiro, with shining eyes, “So they’ll never take anyone again.”

“Uh - I’m not saying I’m for Keith’s plan,” Lance interrupted, “which I’m _not_ , but couldn’t we… theoretically take the base because of our new communications line? Don’t we have all the info we need?”

Pidge shook her head, her mousey curls reflecting the dim pinkness of the room. “The signal _was_ there, the chip was working, but it cut out about a minute after I got the notification. I… I’m afraid we lost it.” She turned her gaze towards the ground, the LEDs on her lenses following suit.

“What?” Lance and Keith exclaimed angrily. 

“You can’t be serious,” Lance sputtered. Keith angrily rubbed the back of his neck.

Pidge nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry. You did all you could.”

“But that’s never enough, is it?” Keith scowled. Shiro shot a warning look in his direction. 

Allura huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose with her slender fingers. “Priorities,” she said, “We have priorities. Attacking Galtech's main line with full force and hardly any information is not - and I repeat, _not_ \- a priority right now.”

“But what is?” Hunk said, familiar worry washing over him like an old friend. Shiro side-eyed him - Hunk couldn’t make out exactly what the man was thinking in the darkness.

Allura sighed. Hunk realized how young she looked, bathed in pink and fire, the future weighing down on her like iron. 

“We need to figure out the source of that signal. The stolen message. It's what brought you all to me, right? Brought us all together. I would say that our utmost priority is to discern where the message is coming from, what it means, _why_ it was sent.” Allura’s brow creased in exhausted determination, the people around her nodding in solidarity. Only Pidge stood alone, her eyes hard. 

_I know_ my _priorities_ , she thought with a stone cold face and the thought of her brother’s veiny hands and quick voice on the edge of her mind. 

“Fine,” Keith agreed, the fire dying down from inside him, steadily. He was grateful. “I need to know where that message comes from, too.” He looked up at Shiro, who gazed back down at him with softened eyes and a warm smile that radiated safety and comfort and home. Sometimes, Keith had to stop himself and remember that this was all real, that Shiro was truly alive and safe and that he could live another day seeing the face of his brother again. It was the good kind of sobering, the kind that happens once in a blue moon or in the aftermath of a long cry. 

“It's all settled, then,” Coran said with a cheer that felt almost out of place - but still comforting, “I think it's time for you all to head to bed. You two especially,” he pointed towards Keith and Lance, “Quite the night, eh?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, “I don't know how I'm going to be able to sleep,” he massaged his jaw. “All the adrenaline and such.”

“Suit yourself,” Keith said from the doorway, lanky silhouette dark in the shadows, Shiro by his side, “Good luck waking me up in the morning.”

Shiro laughed, “Yeah, like you've ever slept more than four hours.” Keith smiled back at his brother, with a small “hah,” and a shove. Lance observed the scene with fondness and longing. He wasn't sure if he just missed his brothers, or hoped Keith would smile at him like that - but it didn't matter, he wasn't going to let himself feel it too deeply, anyways. 

Pidge began towards the door, Hunk following close behind. Lance went along with them, wondering how he would ever lay his firecracker nerves to rest. One foot over the threshold and Allura’s form hand caught his shoulder. 

“You did well today, Lance,” she smiled softly. “I think we underestimated you. I apologize,” Allura said with calm and candor. Coran nodded behind her. 

“Thanks,” Lance muttered, “It wasn't too hard.”

Allura laughed. The shy humility of Lance’s tone was inexplicably funny to her. Coran chuckled as well. 

“Goodnight, Lance,” he said in his strange, tinny voice. 

“‘Night,” Lance said with a slight smile on his lips. He felt okay. He was surprised at how okay he felt, especially despite the fact that he nearly tasted death and felt doubt and fear chew away inside him like battery acid or lye. He felt good despite the fact he knew he wanted the rosebushes and burgundy music and money and wine and laughter to go on forever. He felt good despite the fact he fucked up, acted too soon - far too soon - damn his impulse control to hell. 

He felt good when he crawled underneath the thin blanket and felt the hum of the future at the edge of his eyes, his brain, his heart.

. . .

Pidge couldn't wake up fast enough. She dreamt of letters and signals and black-blooded machines with human eyes and empty brains. Her brother was there, too, alongside the machines. She missed him so much it burned. _I know what I want - getting there’s the problem_ , she mused as she threw her clunky laptop into her messenger bag - rather haphazardly for a machine as valuable as her own heart.

Lance shifted in sleep on the opposite end of the room. Keith’s mouth was slightly parted as he slept, curled in fetal position. Hunk and Shiro’s beds were empty. This wasn't unusual - the two were naturally early risers, no matter what time they fell asleep.

Pidge yawned, ignoring the subtle protests of her tired body, the scratchiness in her eyes, the heaviness of her limbs. She was going to find that signal. She hated that she almost didn't care about the robot children. Of course - her own sense of morality told her it was abhorrent and evil, but the other side of herself told her that they didn't matter, not when compared to the stolen message. Not when compared to Matt. 

Pidge considered her transparency and sense of self-honesty to be a double-edged sword, the bringer of countless nights of confusion. 

Allura was already perched in front of one of the computers when Pidge stepped into the pink glow of the main room. She was deep in thought, her sugar-white bangs pinned up, the intense blue of her artificial irises enhanced by the computer screen. 

“Pidge,” she murmured when she heard the soft tapping of Pidge’s sock feet on the floor. Allura turned her head slightly towards the door in acknowledgment, one eye trained on the blue screen. Pidge wasn't sure how Allura felt about her. In the week they've gotten to know each other, Pidge got the feeling Allura wanted to empathize. The slight glances, shoulder touches, kind ‘I understand(s)’, but it felt like something was always holding her back. Pidge had an inkling of what it was - try as she might, she couldn't hide her true intentions. Her stolen brother was out there, _somewhere_ , tortured and alone - the pure tunnel vision born of grief and desperation was too thick to mask with a happy face and pleasant demeanor. 

And Allura saw right through Pidge - saw that she didn't care about the team, or the complete and utter destruction of Galtech. All she saw was a desperate child willing to do anything to get her family back. 

Or at least, that's what Pidge _suspected_ she thought. 

“Where are Hunk and Shiro?” Pidge asked, settling down into one of the plastic chairs, lined up in a neat row. 

“Out in the city,” Allura said, her shoulders tall and straight. “I'm not sure where, or why.”

“Hmm. So,” Pidge began, her tone without any attempt to distill the awkwardness in the room, “what's the plan?”

“The plan is to track the signal,” Allura’s phone beeped, timely, ‘STOLEN’ plastering itself across her screen without invitation or hesitation, “to wherever it may be coming from. If we find out who sent it, we can find out what it means.”

“Hmm,” Pidge said, tracing circles on the back of her hand, “What's it to you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you even care about the signal anyway? I mean, you can understand why Keith and I are so eager to find the source; this thing has been haunting us for far too long. Lance and Hunk are here because I'm here, and we thought Shiro was the cause of the whole thing. But you - I can't figure you out. Your father was taken, but you have his consciousness. You can talk to him whenever you damn well please. You want to find the source of this signal before attempting any armed attack or serious, offensive infiltration. It doesn't make sense. The signal has nothing to do with taking down Galtech. So, I reiterate; why do you care?” Pidge hummed to herself. She harbored no ill will towards Allura. If it wasn't about her brother, Pidge just cared about the facts right now - the clear-cut, logical sequence of thoughts and pros and cons and everything in between. Pidge just wanted to know where Allura stood. 

Allura’s face remained calm, the cool aura of a leader - a wizened mentor - radiated off of her pink-lined form. “Come with me,” she said with an almost smile. 

“Why?” Pidge asked, cautiously. 

“I want to show you something.” Allura walked towards the door frame with light footsteps, pausing at the threshold. Pidge remained in her place. 

“Come on,” Allura insisted with a warm smile. Pidge begrudgingly padded towards where Allura stood, and the two continued into the long, magenta-hued hallway towards Allura’s bedroom. 

Her room was simple, not too large and not too small, organized and clean. Soft pink lighting and bright hardwood floors gave the room a comfortable, livable feel - which was accentuated by the large bed with a voluminous white blanket in the corner of the room. Screens adorned the walls like eyes and wires snaked across the floor, their source and destination unseen and unknown. Brightly colored pillows were thrown about the room - obviously haphazardly, but not unattractively. 

Pidge always liked seeing people’s bedrooms. They summarized who a person with succinctness and clarity. Her own bedroom was a _mess_ \- spent cables and cracked computers worn down from a lifetime of tinkering littered whatever space she happened to occupy for a long enough time. 

“Have a seat,” Allura gestured towards one of the pillows, kneeling down to one herself. Pidge obliged, sitting cross-legged, mildly surprised by the seemingly ordinary bedroom in a hidden bunker. A blip of normalcy surrounded by the maelstrom of fire and revolution. 

“What was it you wanted to show me?” 

Allura tapped the screen of her watch, which flashed in return. She loosened its band and slid the device off of her wrist. The screen glowed brightly from her palm, which she tilted slightly for Pidge to see. A holographic projection floated above the watch after a brief moment, rotating slightly, bright blue dots and thin, wispy strings between the clusters - flickering with light - glittered in mid-air. The projection looked like a map of a nervous system, or a nebula.The hologram was about one cubic foot in size, the clusters and wisps stretching to occupy once-empty space. It was mesmerizing, in a strange and delicate way. 

“What is it?” Pidge muttered as she swiped her fingers through the blue strands. 

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Allura smiled wistfully at the flickering nodes and their connecting nerves. Pidge nodded. It was elegant and unnerving - and yet, utterly familiar. She felt that she ought to know what it was. 

“The remains of my father’s consciousness. Memories stolen from inside his head, his personality, life-force, _being_ \- all taken from where it should belong. It's not him, not really,” Allura looked sad, her eyes scanning the hologram up and down, “But. I can't help but love it - love _him_ , still.” She looked up at Pidge. “Does that make me weak? That I… claim to hold disdain for all synthetic life as the natural threat to humankind… but I can't see myself living without him. Without _this_.” She toyed with the strands of light with a gentle finger. Allura closed her eyes and tilted her head, slightly, like she was listening to the barely-heard whisper of a dear friend. 

Pidge paused. She supposed it _did_ make Allura a bit of a hypocrite, but at the same time… 

Pidge _hated_ Galtech with the fury of a thousand storms. But if they proffered a way to return her brother to her side, she wasn't sure if she would refuse. She felt her stomach lurch at the thought. 

“It's not like I don't have reason to hate androids,” Allura started, “Synthetic life was a mistake. But my father is now… synthetic. And I can't hate him.”

“How is that even _possible?_ ” Pidge inquired. Such a feat would be _revolutionary_ \- it would mean the end of death as humans have known since the dawn of time, it would usher in the endless age of digital immortality. 

“I'm not sure,” Allura said slowly, averting her eyes. “My father went to work one morning and then… he… we found this,” she gestured to the hologram, “Projected from a micro SSD.” She paused, “I'm sorry. I don't like talking about it.”

Pidge furrowed her brow. Allura _should_ talk about it. This information could change the world. 

“Coran had the idea to meld our consciousnesses. He would never be separated from me again, and I would gain essentially a second brain.”

Pidge adjusted her glasses as Allura’s gaze unfocused. 

“He is as much me as I am him, now,” she said. 

“I can't even _imagine_ what that's like,” Pidge stammered, a little in awe and a little afraid of the collection of consciousnesses inside Allura’s head. “I mean, how does that even feel?”

Allura stopped for a moment, finger resting on her chin in thought. “It feels like the voice inside my head finally has someone other than me to talk to. He's not too intrusive, it's more like… a thought, whose origins I cannot trace appears in my mind without warning. It's comforting to know someone is always looking out for me even when I physically or mentally cannot.”

“But… he's artificial. You don't like artificial intelligences,” Pidge pressed. She could never truly understand people who didn't see androids as beings as worthy of life as humans. She thought of Lance, sheer disgust and fear plastered across his features at a single glance of the purple- hued bots.

“Correct. I don't _trust_ androids because they're made by Galtech. I don't trust anything Galtech.”

“Your father may not be Galtech, but he's certainly artificial…” 

“I believe his constant contact with an organic mind has improved his personality and behavior.”

Pidge hummed, an idea bursting with light inside her mind. “So, would you support… a synthesis of some sort? A way for organic and synthetic life to coexist as one being in one body?”

Allura didn't hesitate, “No. Artificial life will always be a threat to humanity.”

“But that means your father must be destroyed, when this is all over.”

“I know,” her voice hitched, “I know that. But… that's not now. I'm going to celebrate what little I have left of my father until then.”

Pidge shook her head, “Wait, why did you show me this? Why did you take me here?”

The wistful, lonely look on Allura’s young face returned as she gazed at the nebulous glowing hologram before her. “I've said this before. This is all I have left of my father,” she turned her eyes towards Pidge, “He was stolen from me and returned broken and artificial. I know this game. I've been playing revolution since I was a teenager. I know you're angry, but you're not alone in loss. And this may hurt, but - your loss isn't the only thing that matters in this fight. If you don't dedicate your being, your mind, your will towards destroying Galtech, then… thousands more will feel the hatred and anger and fear you feel now. This… this is bigger than us. It's taken me a long time to realize that.”

Pidge shifted, uncomfortably. She knew this. She truly did. She just didn't want to think about it. Her brother was waiting and alone and that was all that mattered. 

“Pidge,” Allura said with the poise of a great general, “I need to know if your heart is with _us_.”

Pidge’s muscles tensed, slightly, less than a second of hesitation. _God_ , she wished Matt were here. But he wasn’t. That’s why she was here instead - looking for him, bringing him home.

Making sure this would never happen to anyone ever again. He would’ve wanted that.

“Yeah,” she said with honest conviction, almost defeatedly, “Yeah. I’m with you.”

Allura beamed. “I knew it.”

. . .

> “I will dive to find her. She is out there, floating for me if I can only swim long enough, climbing up through silent silver bubbles up and up and free.”  
>  Jason Heller

. . .

“Hmm. Nope. Not here,” Hunk murmured, eyes glued to his phone screen. “What about you?”

“Negative,” Shiro said from somewhere behind him. Hunk turned his head to face Shiro. They stood in an abandoned apartment building soon scheduled for demolition. Such buildings were not overly common in the city. Usually, when something was decrypt and dying and done, the city would find some way to reclaim it. The poorest of poor would trickle in, drawn towards the promise of a roof and four walls. Then more would appear, so many more that rules had to be drawn out, separating territory, sharing the ghost of the building with fairness and civility. With rules came more people, some of them clever enough to start selling necessities or services. Business sprang up from the rotting mound of a building, families grew, humanity lived on. The city would reclaim its dead, a cycle as natural as breathing.

But not always. There were some but few - and that made their job a lot easier.

“Two down. Four to go,” Shiro signaled towards Hunk. He nodded in return, taking one last look at the steady monitor, blinking softly. He powered his phone off, not wanting to pick up any anomalies that would impede detection. He and Shiro walked out of the building, empty-handed and hopeful. 

Hunk was grateful for the sunshine. The building would’ve looked absolutely terrifying in the dead of night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this felt like almost a non-chapter. this is certainly transitional - both in universe, and for me to get back on track. the next chapter is going to be pretty plot heavy, some things will unfold. thanks again for your thoughts, comments, continued support ^.^ y'all rock


	8. Blowing Code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Further down the rabbit hole they go, and none of them are really quite sure what any of it means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE PLOT YALL. i hope you like it too!! this chapter is also un-beta'd and proofread by a delirious teenager half-asleep as he types this, so i apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors
> 
> this is a pretty allura/keith chapter, i promisw we'll see more of shiro and hunk in the next one
> 
> side note, i am in mountain time now, so you can expect a post around 10-11:30 MST. its still technically thursday.
> 
> anyway, i hope yall enjoy. that three paragraph theory from the last chapter really, really blew my mind - its freakin fantastic. so please, keep up the comments, they make me so happy.

CHAPTER EIGHT: BLOWING CODE

This happened almost every night, as sure as the sun rises in the east. He walked - never, ever ran - down the hallway glowing bright blue and white. He saw the skulls of the creatures at his feet; herbivores by the looks of their teeth, one long, straight, skinny bone protruding from the centers of their narrow foreheads. The horns crunched underneath his footsteps, clad in black. He felt the splinters of bone pierce his skin, but he never saw red proof ooze out. He could hear bubbling in his ears, even though he knew he had never been underwater in the waking world. It was calming and primordial. 

The hallway continued on. He knew it ended but he could never pinpoint when. Somewhere, somehow, lost in the nethers of his unconscious mind, the skulls disappeared, replaced with wires and cables like the ones that littered the city like the yellow straw of a bird’s nest. He didn’t like the wires, they felt too real for right now. The bubbling rushed inside his mind and he opened the door that sprung before him. It was metal. He never recalled seeing a metal door in his life. They were always glass and shining, easy to look through and easy to break. He gripped the handle and felt the cold metal underneath his smooth palms. It always unfolded the same and he grew to tolerate its presence, grew used to surrendering control of his mind to the dream that never changed. 

Inside the room there was a box. Locked, as per cliche. It was metal, too, smooth and simple. He never tried to open it; he always felt nervous at this part. He just had to keep walking on, staring at the blank white walls and clinical fluorescent lights. The next part was the part he liked best. Passing the box with learned steadiness, the white walls slowly turned to glass. The water lapped at his toes, comfortably warm, inviting and kind. He closed his eyes and welcomed the sensation. He often wondered if he should fight it, as he fought so many other things, be always came to the conclusion: no. The bubbling grew louder and louder, drowning out the sound of his pulse as he waded deeper into the water and let the warmth wash over him and wipe his mind of thought and protest and the water lapped at his eyelids and kissed the nape of his neck and the dream ended. 

. . .

Keith woke to the sound of his watch crying for attention. He jerked awake, bleary eyed but alert. He looked down at his watch and stifled a groan. _That_ word was _not_ what he wanted to greet him first thing in the morning, ever. He ran a hand through his thick, sleep-swept hair and glanced over at Lance beside him, slightly snoring and still deep in unconsciousness. 

Keith wondered what Lance dreamt about. _Probably his family_ , he mused. When Keith thought of the word ‘human’, he thought of Lance - soft and imperfect and endlessly earnest, emotional and resilient. He wasn't angry at Lance for trying to kiss him, he honestly didn't think much of it. He liked Lance, whose sharp face had grown pleasant and familiar in their short time together. He supposed maybe in another life he would've kissed back. But not this one - not while the flames of revolt and hope singed his eyebrows, not while the stolen ghost whispered everywhere he looked. His watch buzzed and he actually groaned, this time. 

Keith brushed his teeth while his watch buzzed. He took it off to unceremoniously splash water on his face, and the watch buzzed itself off the countertop. Keith caught it before it shattered on the tile, the message looking smug from behind the glass of the screen. He wanted to crush the thing in his hand. He elected not to put it back onto his wrist, and instead shoved it in his pocket (with more force than necessary) and stormed out of the bathroom. He grabbed his jacket from where it hung on the back of the bathroom door, his armor.

Shiro and Hunk were quietly explaining something to Pidge, Allura, and Coran - the three of whom were nodding, steadily, listening intently - when Keith entered the computer room. Shiro looked up from the three and acknowledged Keith directly with a small smile and a nod. Keith nodded back and slid into the chairs of the closest computer. He stifled irritation at the mismatching keys of the keyboard - some glowed a bright, scarlet red, while others radiated white-purple. His watch buzzed again - and he audibly groaned.

“Can someone _please_ tell me what is up with this signal? I’ve been getting notifications nonstop,” Keith huffed, his irritation clear and biting.

“It’s funny you mention that,” Pidge said, pushing up her glasses with her middle and index fingers. She pushed them up from the center, grazing the bridge of her nose in the process, Keith observed. He wondered why she still wore glasses when cybernetic eyes were as common in the city as flies in a garbage dump. 

“Shiro and I spent, like, four hours wandering around the city scanning abandoned buildings,” Hunk began in his quick, almost nervous way of speaking. He tapped his bulbous, deformed watch for emphasis. “Okay - the signal can be traced, right? That’s how we know it’s a _signal_ to begin with. Last night I couldn’t sleep, and I kept thinking about how you and Lance and _everyone_ at that party got the signal. Especially when before, only people who had seriously fancy equipment could detect it. That means it must be broadcasting from somewhere, over radio or microwaves… something any device could pick up on. And that’s what Shiro and I were doing - finding this source. Or at least, trying to.” Hunk finished, almost sheepishly.

“And?” Keith asked, crossing his arms.

Shiro looked weary. “As soon as we stepped outside, Hunk’s detector… thing… went crazy. There are just too many signals with too close a frequency to pick out ours, like a needle in a haystack, especially because we’re still not quite _sure_ of the exact frequency of ours. It changes - very slightly, with every stolen message.” Keith’s watched buzzed, timely. “So we figured we needed to eliminate some variables.”

“Which is why we were out spelunking in like, the three abandoned buildings in the entire city. Okay, there are six. Same difference.”

“Yeah - _and_?” Keith asked, impatiently.

“Nothing. Nada. Zip. It was strange, really, seeing an absence of signals after being bombarded with beeps earlier. But yeah, there were only a couple hundred - none of which matched the approximate frequency of ours - compared to the couple thousand we were getting before. Wherever our guy’s coming from, it’s inside the city - the part that’s being regularly used, anyways,” Hunk explained, writhing his hands together. 

“Well,” Keith said, “that’s rough.”

“ _Yeah_.”

“Well,” Allura began, coolly, “We need to track any and all signals closest to the frequency of ours. Pidge, is that possible?”

Pidge chewed her lip. “I’m not sure. Hunk, how bad was the clutter when you first stepped out the door?”

“Awful. There were about a thousand that closely matched the approximation, coming from every single direction. Wherever I pointed there would be a signal like ours.”

“That’s… interesting. And also annoying. I could probably run a program on my laptop that’ll pin down estimated sources… there’s so many, it’ll look more like… impenetrable clusters. But,” she shrugged, “it’s worth a shot.”

“If you think it’ll help, go ahead,” Allura nodded.

Pidge began typing - quickly, with impressive precision. Keith felt on edge - this signal _wouldn’t leave him alone_ and after an entire life’s worth of investigations and sleepless nights he wasn’t any closer to finding out what it means. 

“Oh. That’s… interesting,” Pidge murmured.

“What is it?” Keith asked, sharply.

“There seems to be at least three - no, four - signals matching some of the frequencies we’ve received within 500 feet of where I’m sitting. And more than thirty within one mile.”

Keith nodded, staring intently at the locations pinned by red dots on the screen, memorizing the points like his life depended on it. He quickly stood up from Pidge’s side and headed out the hallway.

“Where are you going?” Shiro asked with an eyebrow raised.

“To track the closest signal,” Keith said, like it was obvious. Shiro stared at him, almost disapprovingly. Keith stared back, expressionless.

“I’ll come with you,” Allura piped up, “I want to see the sources for myself.”

Keith didn’t acknowledge Allura or Shiro has he paced towards the door. He felt the tension underneath his skin like a spring pulled taught and tried his best to feed off that energy, harvesting the adrenaline.

“Wait,” Hunk called out. “Take my tracker. I just downloaded Pidge’s program - mine had too much clutter. Unbearable, isn’t it? Gimme a sec to enter in the frequency, aaaand - it’s yours” he said, handing the bulky watch to Allura. “You’ll need it.”

“Thank you, Hunk,” she said with a small smile. The watch was heavy, perhaps unsurprisingly.

“Good luck,” Hunk said, earnestly, “You’ll need that too.” 

Allura nodded to Shiro on her way out, her bright blue eyes meeting his black ones, filled with weariness and worry. She followed closely behind Keith.

As the two exited the bunker, Hunk frowned, out of concern and uncertainty. Shiro sighed.

. . .

The city was hot. Heat waves wiggled amongst telephone wires and neon tubing, turned off in the day. The sun hazily poked through clouds - thick like cream - casting a gray light on all the city. With the heat came the smell - the unfortunate, omnipresent stench that coated everything the eye could see. People and androids bustled along the sidewalks - each being with a place to be, cars and motorcycles honked and rumbled, hawkers yelled and venders paraded their goods, the cables buzzed with hidden electricity. Everything was normal under the gray haze of the city’s sun - each person unaware of the revolution brewing directly under their feet and in the violet-dark eyes of the boy heading towards them.

Allura pinned up her bangs quickly, extremely aware of all the people surrounding her. She never grew used to the city, even after all these years of learning it's alleys and avenging it's people. She wished she was out in the large, empty, desolate desert ravaged by global warming and other forms of man-made abuse. At least it was quite there. 

_“I know how much you love the quiet, child,”_ her father whispered in the back of her mind, careful not to be too intrusive. He was always comforting, offering words of encouragement, statements drenched in blood-bound familiarity and love. She missed him more than the world would ever know.

She glanced down at the watched strapped down to her left wrist. It hummed with subtle power. “The signal seems to be coming from… the noodle shop. Right on the corner, it says,” Allura said, with a hint of confusion and disbelief in her voice. She looked at Keith and shrugged. He looked at her and shrugged back, and they both continued their approach towards the restaurant. The smell of frying food wafted out from the metal chimney protruding from the tiny building’s concrete roof, the yellow awning unpleasant and attention-catching. People entered in and out of the restaurant, none taking too long, all careful not to touch too much of its grease-coated interior.

“This is the place, I think?” Allura questioned. She and Keith entered the tiny shop, just another of the restaurant’s steady stream of customers to anyone watching from afar. 

The smell was even stronger inside, and Allura found herself surprised at the fact she found the delicious scent overbearing and unappealing. An android wiped the tables, the wet cloth doing little to cut through decades worth of grime. Another android emptied the trash, its head bowed and eyes cast towards the ground. Human workers - all young - took orders and relayed them to the back kitchens, their brows flecked with sweat and grease. 

“That's odd,” Keith muttered towards Allura. “Look, it says there are two signals coming from inside here.”

Allura looked around the tiny shop, incredulously. The place was too small to hide a sophisticated broadcasting system, too open to hide any signs of lurking mastermind. Even with the heightened vision of her cybernetic eyes, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“It must be a malfunction,” she offered. “Let's go visit the other points before we come to any conclusions, though.”

“Okay. It's still strange, though,” Keith murmured. 

“We don’t know that for sure,” Allura said as she stepped towards the door. “Do you want anything?” she gestured towards the overhead menu screens, which were flickering slightly, the colors highly oversaturated and abrasive to the eye.

Keith stopped for a moment, considering. “Yeah, actually. I’ll meet you outside. Unless you want something,” he eyed Allura, who looked slightly skeeved by the sticky interiors of the hole-in-the-wall; nothing showed on her face, but she was carefully avoiding touching anything.

“What’s the matter?” Keith asked.

“Nothing. I don’t want anything, I’ll meet you out front.” Allura said quickly. True to her word, she exited the store, leaving Keith to his own devices. She hated small, tight places like that - especially when all the oxygen molecules within were coated with a healthy layer of grease. She supposed that was why she could never grow to love the city - it was vast but _dense_ , every square inch contaminated by life and its various footprints - clogging up the concrete like dirty pores. She longed for the vacuous desert, with it’s empty, black skies and ancient mesas and canyons carved by wind and water. She did love the people within the city, sometimes feeling sorry that whip-like cables and hot neon lights and never ending haze clouding the air were all they knew, all they were doomed to ever know. She would return their lives to them, she swore once. 

_“Oh, love. You would fight the entire world if you deemed it unjust.”_

“The world _is_ unjust,” she said out loud. She couldn’t think back to her father - she had to vocalize first. “I’m just doing what I can to make my little piece of it better.”

Allura clasped her hands in front of her and waited, patiently. She looked upon the people of the city, bustling, busy, thinking their own private thoughts, each with a different story, one that would remain secret to her for the rest of time. She had an inkling of how they’d end, though: each person succumbing to smog and old age; the coroner would examine their bodies and find the imprints of blinding neon burned into their retinas, a final farewell from the city that never let them go. Allura sighed. 

_“You care for them, dangerously so.”_

Her head swiveled when she heard the door open behind her, Keith appearing holding a styrofoam container, the smell of fried food wafting out from the cracks.

“Where are we going next?” Keith inquired as he opened the box, which squeaked as the lid sprag open. Fat, golden dumplings rested within. The ridges looked hand-pinched and glorious. 

“Smells like that make me almost regret not eating meat,”Allura chuckled to herself. Keith nodded, saying nothing through a mouthful of dumplings. 

Allura glanced at her watch. “We’re headed three and a half blocks west… wait a tic,” she paused, her eyebrows furrowing. 

“What’s the matter?” Keith asked, after he had swallowed.

“This location - this is a _supermarket_. I go here all the time. And these other points? That’s a laundromat, and _that’s_ a convenience store. This can’t be right - it makes no sense. Why would the signal be coming from _these_ places?” Allura stammered, her eyes darting up and down the screen.

Keith’s watch vibrated. Stolen. He looked quickly at Allura’s tracker - the frequency coming from the restaurant behind them blipped.

“I - we were just there. I didn’t see anything; did you?” Allura asked, wide eyed. Keith shook his head.

“The tracker seems pretty accurate, Allura. Especially given…” he trailed off. “Let’s go to the rest of the coordinates. See if we find any similarities. Details, or whatnot.” 

Allura chewed her lip. “Okay. I’m not sure about this though.” She laughed, darkly. “When was I ever?” 

Keith stared at the concrete as the two walked west. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sure,” he said, finally. “You just have to pull it off.”

“I understand. But self-confidence and esteem has _quite_ the role to play.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

Allura snorted. “I can’t just _turn off_ my self perception.”

Keith shrugged. “Why not?”

“I have to believe in myself, or else I’ll get lost down… a maze of doubt and self-pity. I won’t get anything done if I constantly second-guess my actions. I’m not unique in this, you know,” Allura replied, partly confused and partly wary of Keith’s viewpoint.

“It’s easy to shut off your mind and just do things. It’s instinct. I don’t care about how anybody sees me. I don’t need to doubt myself because I know who I am. What people expect of me doesn’t matter. They can’t change the fact that I know who I am.” Keith’s dark eyes were fixated on the concrete, his black bangs covering his forehead. The conviction in his voice surprised Allura. He was a bit of an enigma to her - she didn’t expect such a brazen declaration of self-confidence from the quiet boy who hardly said a word in her presence. 

“Who you are changes,” Allura pondered out loud. “The self doesn’t stay the same forever.”

“I know who I am,” he said, so firmly it effectively ended the conversation.

They walked in silence for a bit. Allura looked at Keith and wondered what he was thinking, as she did often.

“We’re here,” she said, shortly thereafter. The supermarket was easily the widest, flattest building within ten miles. It didn’t shy away from the over-use of neon, easily blending in with the rest of the surroundings. Shoppers bustled in and out, violet-hued androids reorganized shopping baskets at the front door. A child licked his red-bean popsicle as he and his father exited the supermarket, sneering at the other kids who dared stare at it enviously. An elderly couple hobbled to their car, which sat dormant at the charging station. A young woman gasped as she dropped a container of blueberries, the fruits spilling across the concrete. An android rushed over to assist her, and other shoppers looked on at the scene with human curiosity.

Keith watched with amusement. Allura looked down at her watch and frowned. “I can’t believe _this_ is where the frequency is coming from,” she exhaled, “At least it’s bigger. Maybe it’ll even give us an exact location, this time.”

They entered the store - the doors slid open and they were greeted by the smell of packaged air and plastic. 

“Where does it say to go?” Keith asked, his voice low. 

“It’s strange,” Allura murmured, “there are multiple frequencies really similar to some of the stolen ones all throughout the store. I guess I couldn’t see them on the tracker from far away… I’m counting at least ten. Probably more. The message was broadcasted from here many times, it seems.” 

“Well, let’s choose one point and check it out,” Keith said. His watch vibrated, _again_ , and he restrained his frustration. “Wait. I just got the message again,” he conveyed to Allura.

“It’s this dot, here, still in the store… wait. _What_. It’s _moving_ ,” she shoved her watch in Keith’s face. The little red dot moved, ever so slightly, sideways within the store. “Whoever sent the message must still be here, in person.”

“Where is that?” Keith asked, sharply. He felt the adrenaline spike in his fingertips.

“It’s… that way.” Allura pointed towards the fish market. She and Keith simultaneously broke into a hasty walk, bordering on a run. She almost tripped over a display stand, her eyes glued to the screen, watching the little red dot blip wiggle sideways.

The smell of the fish market was strong, although nothing compared to the hawkers who openly displayed live fish, eels, dried shrimp on the bare sidewalk. Several people stood in front of the glass display case, the fish’s dead eyes staring up from the ice. The fishmonger was bent over, with a hand firmly grasped around a fat salmon. Allura didn’t have time to react like she normally would, her heart raced too fast and her eyes searched, frantically.

_“Right in front of you,”_ her father said from inside her head, and she felt her vision sharpen and her nerves calm. 

“Right in front of us,” she conveyed to Keith, who was equally alert and hectic.

“What? The fishmonger?” Keith asked, one eyebrow raised in doubt.

“Yes,” Allura breathed as her father confirmed. The fishmonger stood to his full height, the fluorescent light catching his skin, revealing the violet undertones that shimmered iridescent, much like the fish’s scales that rubbed off on his forearm.

Keith’s watch buzzed, and he snapped his eyes towards Allura’s tracker with utmost haste. A red dot lit up from the other side of the store.

“Huh?” Keith exclaimed. Allura’s brows shot up in shock and confusion. 

“What is _going on_?” Allura blurted out.

“I have no idea.” Keith ran a hand through his hair. 

“Okay. I have the tracker. I’m going to follow this… other signal. You stay here, watch the fishmonger. I’ll call you if something’s up. Stay alert,” she commanded. Keith nodded, looking into her artificially bright eyes with his own, muted in comparison to her sharp blue.

“Can I help you, sir?” A voice directed towards Keith took his attention away from Allura. The fishmonger smiled at Keith, his blond hair contrasting with the purple sheen of his skin, glinting in the bright lights.

“Uh, I’m just… I’m just looking,” Keith said awkwardly, still feeling the rush of adrenaline and tension beneath his skin.

“Okay! Let me know if you need anything,” the man said with a friendly tone. Keith pursed his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets, both eyes trained on the android. His watch blipped, twice consecutively, and he whipped out his phone so fast he almost dropped it. He tapped Allura’s contact as fast as he could. She picked up immediately.

“Allura, I just got the message twice. Where’s it coming from?”

“Um… looks like two more dots around this store. Not mine, which, by the way, was a dead end. Just some bot reorganizing cereal. What’s going on, Keith? Is this some sort of decoy?”

“I don’t know!” he exclaimed, loudly, earning the stares of surrounding shoppers. “Tell me the location of one of the dots and I’ll follow it. You get the other one,” he continued in a whisper.

“I’m not sure. Looks like the produce section? Oh god, I really do come here a lot,” Allura muttered to herself. 

“Okay. I’ll call you.”

Keith hung up, and began towards the produce section, practically running. The aisles passed by in a blur. He was desperate to look at the face of the person haunting him all these years, he wanted more than anything to look into their eyes and asked them what it all meant, what was it all for. His mouth felt drier than a desert.

Keith came to a shuddering stop as he found himself surrounded by fruits and vegetables, each unnaturally colorful. Genetically modified, no doubt - but he couldn’t care less about that - his eyes darted around him, almost uncontrollably. He caught sight of a woman, dressed in black with long, dark hair standing by the apples. He started towards her and the world felt slow.

His phone rang. The woman turned her head towards the sound and Keith saw the green of her apron and the violet hue of her pale skin. “Do you need anything, sir?” she asked, pleasantly. She was holding a round apple in her hands. Keith blinked and answered his phone.

“Nothing here,” Allura said, “Just another android doing its job.”

“Same,” Keith replied.

Allura sighed, weary and worn. “I just wish I knew what was going on. I’ll meet you out front.”

Keith cast one last look towards the android woman. His feet were heavy as he walked towards the door. He felt used.

Allura stood by the door, her hands clasped before her, her white bob angled downward as she looked towards the ground. 

“Hey,” Keith said, monotonous.

“Hey. We need to think. Those signals weren’t a lie - we saw them real time. The tracker works,” Allura didn’t hesitate. “The message was being broadcasted - live - from inside that store. We know that much.”

“But how?” Keith pressed, running his hands through his hair.

“Was there any sort of… broadcasting device at any of the locations that blipped? Any means of distribution - a radio, a pi, a wire? Anything at all?” Allura brooded furiously. She tapped her foot in concentration and shut her eyes. Keith knew she was listening to her father.

“Oh. _Oh_. How? What does that mean? The implications… I…” she whispered, eyelids snapping open. “Keith. What’s the one thing every single location had in common. Let’s walk.” The two headed away from the grocery store, deep in thought and confusion and desperation.

“They were… all inside the same store,” Keith offered, lamely. Fate and circumstance strung him along for too far and he was tired. Exhausted, really. He tried to fight it with all his might, tried to fight the weariness that dredged down his thoughts and lulled his body. He just wanted an answer.

“What about the one from the dumpling shop? That was live, wasn’t it?” Allura stared at him.

“Yeah, but how do those two link? Aside from the message itself.”

“I said it before: what is the one thing each and _every single one_ of the locations all had?”

Keith was silent for a moment, his arms crossed, tightly. “The bots,” he finally relinquished.

Allura smiled.

“Each - and every - spot had an android - but, so what? They were just doing their job. We were watching them the whole time. They didn’t have the chance to send the signal. We would’ve seen it,” he asserted. He couldn’t even begin to grasp what Allura was getting at - that every android was a participant in some gigantic conspiracy to haunt him. It didn’t make any sense.

“They have the capability to broadcast a signal from their internal hardware,” Allura explained, “They’re machines. They automatically give off a certain signature. Who’s to say that signature can’t be re-programmed to send a message?”

“But why? Why would every android in the entire city broadcast a signal that probably has nothing to do with them?” Keith remained unconvinced.

“I couldn’t even begin to understand the motives behind synthetic organisms,” Allura almost scoffed. “But. Before we make any definitive conclusions, we should go to the laundromat and convenience store first. Just to confirm if there are any androids working there.”

Keith nodded, almost absently.

“And Hunk and Shiro - the only spots in the city that were devoid of signal - you know what they were missing?” she realized, thinking out loud.

“Yes. I know,” Keith rubbed his eyes. He felt more than tired; he felt worn down. “But Allura, what could this mean?”

She chewed on her lip before responding. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

“Okay,” Keith said quietly, without bite. “Where is the laundromat?”

“Just up the street. We’ll be there in a tic.”

She and Keith walked in silence, each mulling over thoughts and possibilities in their head - each one dark, each one just as lost.

“Hey Allura.”

“Hmm?” Allura looked up, she wasn’t expecting him to say anything more. The sunlight glinted off her impossibly blue eyes, making them look even brighter. Keith could see the depth in her irises - they looked more like camera lenses than human eyes.

“What if the androids don’t know they’re being used? What if they were never aware someone was bouncing the message through their signatures? What if no one ever told them, and they had no way of knowing?” Keith blurted out, faster than Allura had ever heard him speak. His facial expression was nervous, tension wrought between his brows.

“An unwilling participant,” she murmured.

“Exactly,” he replied, with surprising conviction. Allura didn’t know why he was so reactive - and she wasn’t sure it was wise to ask.

“It’s possible. It would eliminate having to find an explanation for the androids’ involvement - which I admit, is an enigma to me. But we would have no way of knowing for sure.”

Keith didn’t say anything, just stared at his feet while they walked. “Unless we talk to one,” he said quietly.

Allura laughed. “Yes, that’s easy. Who knows what kind of bugs androids are equipped with have? They could actually be Galtech spies, for all we know.”

“Allura,” Keith looked directly into her eyes and Allura saw the fire in his black-violet, saw the passion and raw emotion within, the same flames that kept him alive even when he lost it all. “We have one we can talk to.”

Her eyes widened - as big as saucers - when she realized who he was talking about.

. . .

> “You are not sensitive and will never experience this, but raw data surges, blunt data with errors which are slowly refined like the process of chiseling out a sculpture from a block of marble.”  
>  \- Tade Thompson

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i characterize keith in a way i haven't really seen in fandom - that of a person who doesn't care about his self-image, or how other people perceive him - he is too comfortable in his own personality to be bothered by trivial things like that, things that get in the way of what truly matter to him. after living in isolation for so long, the person he got to know the best is himself. he knows who he is and he's okay with that person, it gives him solace even when everything spirals out of control. i'd love to discuss this in the comments or on my tungle.
> 
> also, you're damn right i made dumplings while writing this, and they were freakin delicious. 
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading as always :D


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